A grand video about battery chargers, thank you Sir. Been watching how to bring dead. lead acid cell batteries back to life too. So great to simply watch a video how to pro.

thanks for showing the novel use for lock pliers, and soldering, and etc.

I respect and appreciate anyone who takes the time to share their knowledge and create a video for others. I was excited for the first quarter of the video. Everything was super detailed and even went into the weeds of "how" it works, not just fixing a problem. The only thing I'm disappointed about is the lack of troubleshooting to get to the fix point. Mine "hums" and I'm getting 9.5-10.2V at the clamps. The Ammeter isn't doing anything, even on a known good battery. I'll open mine up and see if its similar. Mines a Solar 330 40/2A Charger-200A engine starter, built in 1998. Good luck searching "Solar battery charger" in 2024! Great video, subbed.

it's a good habit to keep terminals greased up in tools like that and in automotive use, keeps the moisture out and saves you a lot of frustration.

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! I bought the same bridge rectifier and heat sync paste and resurrected a 40+ year old Century 200A boost charger.

I like the creation spirit quite a lot, Regards Jean-François

Why would you not use the positive output side of the module with a wire for the red battery + side with the negative - side output wire ? Or am I not understanding this output side of the module ?

Great repair video. Thanks

I have a newer manual charger that I use to start stubborn diesels when cold (real with bad glo-plugs). My question is: is there a way to build a regulator so that on the higher amperage settings, I don't get enough voltage to kill my batteries.

Berry I have a snap on/bluepoint/ Schumacher. I'm almost sure it's just the control board failed. I can't find parts for it and I would like to keep it somehow. Any universal controller or a bypass to run off the transformer?

Very good and helpful video. However a voltage of 12.7 on the low range is questionable. Lead/acid battery cells are nominally 2.2V so 6 cells would be 13.2 volts. You will see this on a freshly charged battery. However you did not show your setup for measuring that voltage. Certainly you didn't take a DC reading with open leads for it would have been up to 18-19 volts. So I am guessing that hopefully you had it connected to a battery less than fully charged and it should eventually get to 13.2V or a little more. I had not thought about the secondary being center tapped but that makes sense. That way the secondary could be wound for 24v(probably 36v) instead of 12 and it would take half as many turns. I too have doubts about 120V supplied chargers supplying 200A. That would require 20A at 12V but you want more than 12 volts so thus more than 20A would be required. However circuit breakers will take an overload for a while without triiping so maybe the charger really is providing 200A figuring the overload will last less than a minute. Thanks for the video. I am looking for an old style charger so you boost my hopes of finding one that is repairable. I hate the newer smart chargers that have their own idea of what I want. The worst part is the the reversed lead detection that won't charge a completely dead battery. I had to jumper to another battery to get the charge started. Later I took the charger apart and put in a sneak circuit connected to a pushbutton so I could fool the crappy thing into thinking there was voltage present. I really hate that Schumacter has such a large share of the market now as I find their products to be substardard. I had a job offer from them but the pay was way below the going rate. So how are they going to get good engineers offering crappy pay?

Hey barry, I was wanting to do this upgrade to my unit as well, to run my charger on 200 amp charge in 15 minute intervals, will this rectifier work for that or would I need a higher amp rectifier like 300 amp for the longer high amp application?

Smart video thanks for the description of rectifier operation

thanks for sharing 👍

Good job! I wish someone would make a video on changing a smart charger into a manual one. There is one video of a guy doing that to get rid of rust using, I can't think of the word. There are several videos of fooling smart chargers with little batteries. The ideal video, for me, would be one where the guy eliminates the smart board from 3 or 4 different types of smart chargers and installs a 1 hour or 90 minute timer on each. I have a pile of smart chargers and they all a little different, The big one has a timer which is where I got the timer idea. I need a new one and find many on ebay. Some from dryers with a motor on it and some with a bell. Some are from electric ovens and simply "appliances". I'd like one that is mechanical with only 2 wires. As you ca tell, I could write 20 pages asking questions and making comments. I just want to mention one quick one. Those yellow wire connectors that crimp on the wire fail too often. I just strip the wire and loop it around the bolt. Its ugly and unprofessional looking BUT when compared to one that pulled out it works a million times better. On paper, it should be the last resort but in reality it makes the best contact and most reliable. I think instead of soldering the connector, soldering the end of the copper wire back onto itself making a loop has the best result even though ugly and unprofessional. Just my opinion. I just subscribed.

Hey thanks for the Video. It' great when knowledgeable people share their skills. I have an old Schumacher that has saved me many times over the years. It's 2A, 40A and 200A boost. I thought the 200A was underperforming by the sound. My readings were (on a low battery) (setting, voltage at battery, Amps through positive cable) 2A, 12.3V, 1.5A, : 40A, 16.5V, 6.5A and for 200A boost, 19V, 15A. Do you think the 200A is underperforming? It's when it's 30F outside and the truck won't start that is the best test but that's when I'll need the boost. Thanks!

Awesomeness

Is there a shop I can send my charger to get any repairs short of buying all new?

Hello I have a older Sears battery charger model #934.718460 . Rectifier seems to be defective. Mine has two large negative leads from secondary windings of the transformer. That goes to ,what looks like there are two four diode bridges Should I look at purchasing two bridge rectifiers modules ? Have pictures. Couldn’t see how to add pictures using KZfaq app. Thank you in advance.

Did you not have the right size ring terminals? Those were not a good match. Otherwise nice job. 👍

Hey barry, I'm having some trouble wiring my battery charger up and was wondering if I could email you and get help with this problem?

Hey Barry I just left some comments on another video. But I’ve been working for a band for the last year and starting 2-3 months ago I’ve been doing sound more and more. We play 2-4 shows a week from March-Oct, now during the winter it’s slower… I’d like to email you if I could. Do you have one you can send me? Back in aug our sound guy quit last minute and I ended up doing sound and doing so on the fly not knowing anything really. Learning our entire pa at a gig… granted we didn’t start until 5 instead of 3 lmao. Un-muting the PA and mixes was the hardest thing to find lmao. Getting signal, little simple things like that smh But I’d appreciate if I could ask you some questions and run some things by you about combos we use like more then one channel per instrument. What a better combo would be. In your opinion anyway. Thanks, Jesse

I see that you know a great deal about electricity. I wonder if you would consider my problem. I have a 400 ft well with a 3 wire 1 horsepower pump. How it works is the 2 legs of 220 go to a pressure switch. Once activated the 2 wires go to the pump control box which has a start capacitor and sends 3 wires to the pump. The water goes to an expansion tank then upon reaching like 60psi everything shuts off. What if my water freezes? What if a break in the pipes causes water to go everywhere and I am not around? I went to the local business and they have no answer. Proposal: If I had just a pressure sensor that made a signal turn on a relay that powered the control box I could set up a timer that if the pump runs for more than, say 4 minutes, it automatically shuts off. I would love an alarm, too. In fact, I wouldn't mind a blue light at the well that tells me when the pump is on. Since I'm dreaming I would like to know the amps the pump draws while on so in the future i could track differences. It would be nice if all of this were somehow in some log that would tell me the history of the particulars. I know I'm not the only one with this problem yet no one makes a plug in solution to it. You need not spend your time on this, I would feel guilty if you did, but if you like this type of problem solving I (and probably others) would appreciate the help. Thank you

Came here to see Neil Young talk about battery chargers.

I'm through buying modern chargers. They're junk, and many times won't charge a dead battery, which is ridiculous!

It's max 40amp can charge, not 200Amp