Defective battery charger
My inexpensive Schumacker charger does not seem to be working. I can hear it running but if I put the pos. & neg. clips from my volt meter on the battery terminals I get zero reading. Is this how you ...
Forum Discussion
Weldon wrote:
No sir the gel cell was not dead as mentioned. On a previous post someone said I should use one of the $13. chargers for the gel cell which I did and it worked. Unfortunately the schumacker charger is still on the blink.
If yours is the old school transformer style you may have damaged the output circuit breaker and or fuse able link between the transformer and diodes which is inside the charger. What happens is the charger may have been going into over current continually which makes the breaker cut in and out. Do this enough in a short amount of time and the breaker wears out.
Or in some cases some chargers use a light gauge fuse "link" which blows to protect the charger from burning up and causing a fire in the event the diodes short..
Keep in mind for future references..
Don't "short" the leads together to see if it "sparks".
Don't use car charger to charge little batteries.
Little batteries require little chargers, do not attempt to use chargers not designed for that battery.
Little batteries do not like "fast" high current charging and bad things can happen..
Newer fancy three stage chargers will not charge a dead battery (IE less than 10V for a 12V battery).
Without knowing the model number it is all guesses as to what you have.. But most chargers are not designed to be repaired so if you "can open" it, be careful since there will be some line voltage inside!
If you have a Harbor Freight store handy, they often have car chargers on sale...
