Battery charger question

[lectureral]

Slightly OT - I bought a battery charger in Lidl today - Tronic brand. I need it for the car battery. Only when I got it home did I notice that it says max 12 Ah (2/6/12v) - adapted for "domaine du modelisme". I am guessing that my car battery (Clio) is bigger than this.

The question is - what would happen if I used it on a bigger capacity battery - would it blow up/blow a fuse or just be very slow and/or not charge the battery fully??

 

[Fecn]

It'll most likely be fine.. It'll just be very slow. It might also not terminate the charge cycle properly as the trickle-charge current may never drop low enough to trigger the cut-off (assuming it is designed to terminate it at all... many just charge to a fixed voltage and then stay there.)

What model number is it? My googling only found the Tronic TX4 which says it goes up to 120Ah.

 

[Oxygen Bicycles]

You probably bought a charger for mopeds and scooters. Those normally have the 12Ah batteries. You can use it and it won't blow your battery, but as Fecn said it just might takes ages to fully charge the battery.

best regards

Andrew

 

[lectureral]

Thanks guys - Fecn, it is mod 99411 but a Google search did not bring it up. It is very lightweight - most like a mobile phone charger. It says 10W max, 600mA and 7.2VA (max) on it.

 

[Fecn]

You clio most likely has a 45-65Ah battery. Assuming it's a teeny 45Ah battery, then it will need 585 Watt hours of charge from flat... At 10 watts max, the charger will take around 60 hours (2.5 days) to charge it up.

 

[onmebike]

Slightly OT - I bought a battery charger in Lidl today - Tronic brand. I need it for the car battery. Only when I got it home did I notice that it says max 12 Ah (2/6/12v) - adapted for "domaine du modelisme". I am guessing that my car battery (Clio) is bigger than this.

The question is - what would happen if I used it on a bigger capacity battery - would it blow up/blow a fuse or just be very slow and/or not charge the battery fully??

I have several of these, they are ideal for smaller capacity gel batteries which I use for r/c flight. I have tried on larger motorcycle batteries and they never seem to reach capacity[light off], I think the reason for this is, the voltage is slightly different, the gel battery reaching capacity at a slightly lower voltage than the standard lead acid car battery.

 

[lectureral]

Thanks for all the help - it's all academic because I cannot lift the battery out of the car - it seems to be jammed in its compartment - and there is no power supply near it. Looks like a jump start and then pay the garage man to replace it. Thanks anyway guys.

 

[Mussels]

I was looking for a charger recently and Halfords seem to use scare tactics to sell bigger chargers, except they quote engine size instead of battery size. If someone asked "Can I use the up to 1,400cc charger for an 1,800cc car?" their stock answer was a flat no but they refused to say why. As it turned out all the chargers were unsuitable for sealed batteries and could be used on trickle charge only so the cheapest one was just as good as the most expensive.

 

[onmebike]

Thanks for all the help - it's all academic because I cannot lift the battery out of the car - it seems to be jammed in its compartment - and there is no power supply near it. Looks like a jump start and then pay the garage man to replace it. Thanks anyway guys.

Some batteries are secured in place at their base there may be a bar along the front of the battery with a bolt through it. Check yours isn't like this. Just a thought.