How to test a battery charger

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3 жыл бұрын

One battery not taking a charge can be expected, two demands further investigation. There should be a circuit between the charger clips at all times, showing close to no resistance; set your multimeter to the lowest ohms setting and ideally it should read 000. Next set the multimeter to 20v, turn the charger on, and you should see 12v or something very close; zero means nothing is coming out.

Пікірлер: 47

@FetchTheCow 11 ай бұрын

Just what I needed. Thanks!

@markomus1 2 жыл бұрын

This was fun. I inherited my dad's Schumacher SE-50MA (not the SE-50MA-2). It worked for a long time. I needed it today and tested it. 9 VDC. :( RIP Dad's battery charger. Looks like I'll be getting a new one.

@ImminghamIronhead 2 жыл бұрын

I feel your loss; the Schumacher looks like something NASA would use.

@troypurnell7479 2 жыл бұрын

What does it supposed read when testing the charger?

@markomus1 2 жыл бұрын

@@troypurnell7479 12.9v or better. You also have to take into account what you're trying to charge, how long you want/need it to take (amperage). This varies some from model to model, so you have to read the manual for further details.

@markrickel1632 7 ай бұрын

“Another way to tell”. Class ic!!!!

@chazw1964 4 ай бұрын

With my 30 year old charger which was giving the same symptoms, I found that the rocker switches which controlled 6/12V and High/Low charge rate were corroded and stopping electrical flow. A squirt of serviseol contact cleaner into the back of them, few clicks back and forth and then it was back to working again. Result!

@ImminghamIronhead 4 ай бұрын

I wish you another 30 happy years with your battery charger 🙂

@carlocruz3192 Ай бұрын

Can't you just replace the rocket switch,

@ImminghamIronhead Ай бұрын

@@carlocruz3192 That's a good point; it's not guaranteed to be the switch but as far as I know it could have been the issue.

@carlocruz3192 Ай бұрын

@@ImminghamIronhead you can check for the integrity of the switch, test the continuity of the racker switch where the wires are connected, remove wires first. Then turn on and off the switch it should have a beep sound .

@coeniejvr 11 ай бұрын

You can still get 12v but no amperage, so you need to check the voltage first then you need to check the amperage it charge at. If it has low to no amperage then you will wait for days to get it fully charged.

@trevorbyron9448 Жыл бұрын

But how test the amperage of charger

@24321619 Жыл бұрын

Mine shown 17 volts under no load but still failed to charge a 9 Amp Hour battery. Conclusion voltage alone will not show if a charger works, you need amps as well

@ImminghamIronhead Жыл бұрын

That's useful to know; as you can probably tell, I'm no electrician :-)

@ptbg8388 10 ай бұрын

…another way to tell is if you bought your battery charger 30 years ago 🤣🤣 I love that so much!!! pretty sure that’s what my problem is

@ImminghamIronhead 10 ай бұрын

You know those hand held wire stripper things you get for next to nothing? I had one of those break after nearly 40 years and actually felt a bit cheated 🙂 Really resented buying another.

@ozbloke74 2 жыл бұрын

Don't some battery chargers only trigger on once on the battery posts ?

@WhalerGA Жыл бұрын

Mine only measures 9.5-10.0v when not connected to a battery but it seems to charge batteries. It's a 20-year old Die Hard charger made in Mexico. It's been used very little during that time. Mainly sits in my garage.

@24321619 Жыл бұрын

Most of the more modern advanced chargers do.

@zyxnix 10 ай бұрын

bought it thirty years ago...🤔🤣

@EliteOpticsLighting 7 ай бұрын

Haha 😄 bought it 30 years ago 👍

@ImminghamIronhead 7 ай бұрын

Nothing's built to last anymore 😞

@coreygreen5190 4 ай бұрын

They are great

@r8118830 Жыл бұрын

These old fashioned types of battery charger are easy to repair you know. The most probable type of failure is the 4 diode bridge rectifier. The next is one of the windings on the transformer. A new bridge rectifier is cheap. A new transformer is not.

@r8118830 Жыл бұрын

I mostly worked as a technician at colleges and universities. I used to collect transformers from broken and obsolete equipments. It was always entertaining to make things like chargers and power supplies work using the bits I had saved.

@ImminghamIronhead Жыл бұрын

I did not know that; thanks

@jarvistrimble1115 Жыл бұрын

Excellent video. I have a Dewalt 1400 Amp jump starter. I have had it for several years and I am sure that it has ever worked properly. Previously I had tried jumping off an old pick up truck and it didn't work. i just assumed that I was doing something wrong and used another vehicle to jump the truck off. I put it up and forgot about it. Fast forward and I had bought a 12000watt portable generator for my home in the event of power outages. Everything was setup and I couldn't get it started and ran the battery down. It was jumped off by a van so i know that the unit runs perfectly. I tried the Dewalt chartger and nothing. After 2 days of charging, the Dewalt showed that it had only charged up to 10.1 Amps.......obviously not working properly.. By the way are these things worth having reparied? Thanks again.

@ImminghamIronhead Жыл бұрын

My dead charger was a cheap plastic one I got in the 90's, so probably not in my case :-)

@rcnelson Жыл бұрын

Start at 1:50. Also hope your charger wasn't made by Lucas.

@ImminghamIronhead Жыл бұрын

Lucas Prince of Darkness! I had British motorcycles in the eighties/nineties, and they all came with broken Lucas parts.

@dominicmcbride7274 Жыл бұрын

So funny. Wit of the Irish?

@ImminghamIronhead Жыл бұрын

I'm English (West Country though; we do sound different to the rest of them), but thank you anyway :-)

@DTA-me3kv Жыл бұрын

How yo test without a voltage meter??????

@ImminghamIronhead Жыл бұрын

I don't know any other method, but if it refuses to charge more than one battery, it's probably the charger.

@bobsoft 8 ай бұрын

If its an old school transformer type it will hum if its working.

@jcombs641 8 ай бұрын

This is not very informative unless your not experienced at any level in automotive or motorcycle mechanic capabilities.. 🙄.. but he the bike looks great !

@donnybrasco1601 2 жыл бұрын

My old charger is only pushing out 4.5v. Is there something wrong with my charger?

@ImminghamIronhead 2 жыл бұрын

Could be; the advice I got was to look for 12v. There was absolutely nothing on mine.

@r8118830 Жыл бұрын

The old type do not need to connect to any voltage present already to work. Makes life easy. Depending on the exact charger design you should be reading something like 13 to 14 volts for a 12 volt battery on the clamp leads. If you are not then the charger is faulty.

@alexanderdewit6611 Жыл бұрын

Sound is terrible.

@arthurserino2254 2 жыл бұрын

A cheap-ass piece of shit plastic battery charger from China doesn't usually last that long, and it's still a waste of money if it does. That multimeter I bought for about $4 US, and after a few weeks one of the wires simply fell off the test lead. I was measuring 470V at the time, and that could've resulted in a nasty shock!

@alexusanin1632 3 ай бұрын

Why are you using cheap multimiter to measure 470V? If you touch anything near that you are ought to have a proper equipment. For the rest of us, $4 will do just fine.

@arthurserino2254 3 ай бұрын

@@alexusanin1632 It measures it just fine. I got a better set of leads and haven't had any problems since.