problems with Lidl smart Car Battery charger - anyone else?
jkn
following recommendations here I bought one of the 'smart car
battery chargers' from Lidl last year. The first couple of times I
used it it seemed fine. I've had occasion to have to recharge the car
battery a couple of times during the recent weather and have had
problems. I'm wondering if it's me ... or if the thing is not working
properly.
Basically the unit goes back to 'idle' mode - with just the main
'standby' LED on - after a few seconds/minutes. If I press the mode
button again the LEDs start advancing to the selected mode (light/
normal/heavy duty etc.), but then the unit is likely to immediately
flip back to standby.
A bog standard 'dumb' charger goes into charge mode rather than top-up
mode. When I last tried & failed to use the Lidl charger, I measured
the battery terminal voltage beforehand at ... oh crumbs, not sure I
can remember. Either 6.9V or 9.6V ;-/
If the charger is screwed and I can find the receipt I will take it
back for replacement or refund under warranty, but since it seems a
good unit and they ren't on sale at the moment I thought I'd check
here to see if any of this sounds familiar...
Thanks
J^n
Adam Aglionby
> Hi All
> following recommendations here I bought one of the 'smart car
> battery chargers' from Lidl last year. The first couple of times I
> used it it seemed fine. I've had occasion to have to recharge the car
> battery a couple of times during the recent weather and have had
> problems. I'm wondering if it's me ... or if the thing is not working
> properly.
>
> Basically the unit goes back to 'idle' mode - with just the main
> 'standby' LED on - after a few seconds/minutes. If I press the mode
> button again the LEDs start advancing to the selected mode (light/
> normal/heavy duty etc.), but then the unit is likely to immediately
> flip back to standby.
>
> A bog standard 'dumb' charger goes into charge mode rather than top-up
> mode. When I last tried & failed to use the Lidl charger, I measured
> the battery terminal voltage beforehand at ... oh crumbs, not sure I
> can remember. Either 6.9V or 9.6V ;-/
Thats the answer afraid, cold weather is bad for elderly people and
lead acid batteries.
9.6V is at least one dead cell in battery, smart charger is rejecting
it dumb charger will just try and put over 14V into it anyway.
Cheers
Adam
terry
Before assuming it's the charger?
6.9 or 9.6 volts on a nominal 12 volt lead-acid battery?????? e.g. a 6
cell car battery??????
Something wrong?
That low a voltage, especially if measured with no load (i.e. open
circuit except voltmeter) usually indicates a battery that is
completely flat (discharged).
Maybe battery so seriously discharged, or faulty, that the charger
cannot cope?
Was battery left in discharged condition for a long period?
If so it may be beyond use?
Just a suggestion based on..
Have had something similar trying to reactivate dead cordless tool
batteries (not lead-acid) of various voltages.
The 'smart chargers' for that tool/battery pack act up but can
sometimes be tricked into trying to recharge the battery pack.
Whereupon most of the battery packs are found to be too old and beyond
use.
jkn
>
> Thats the answer afraid, cold weather is bad for elderly people and
> lead acid batteries.
>
> 9.6V is at least one dead cell in battery, smart charger is rejecting
> it dumb charger will just try and put over 14V into it anyway.
That makes sense, and I was wondering if the battery was sh*gged. I
was actually quite surprised how well it behaved after recent
charge ... was half-expecting problems.
Looks like it might be a new battery this weekend ;-(.
Cheers
J^n
Harry Bloomfield
> A bog standard 'dumb' charger goes into charge mode rather than top-up
> mode. When I last tried & failed to use the Lidl charger, I measured
> the battery terminal voltage beforehand at ... oh crumbs, not sure I
> can remember. Either 6.9V or 9.6V ;-/
At that low level of voltage it is normal for the Lidl charger to
assume the battery is faulty and not attempt to charge it.
--
Regards,
Harry (M1BYT) (L)
http://www.ukradioamateur.co.uk
Jules
> Thats the answer afraid, cold weather is bad for elderly people and
> lead acid batteries.
In what way? I didn't think they provided as much power when cold - but
I'd always heard that lead-acid cells have a shorter lifespan the *hotter*
the climate...
(our daily-use car, with 170k on the clock, still has its original 12yo
battery - I've always put that down to the fact that it's sodding
freezing here for half the year)
The Medway Handyman
> On Thu, 14 Jan 2010 07:16:53 -0800, Adam Aglionby wrote:
>> Thats the answer afraid, cold weather is bad for elderly people and
>> lead acid batteries.
>
> In what way? I didn't think they provided as much power when cold -
Elderly people don't provide that much power in hot weather either.
:-)
--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
jkn
FYI, having just charged the thing up with the dumb charger, I
measure the off-load voltage as 12.8V. From a bit of reading (my
knowledge of lead-acid batteries seems to have faded...) this seems
about right for a battery in good condition.
From previous comments here it does seem likely that the battery is at
fault. But I'm curious about the failure mode - is it likely for one
dodgy cell to be failing when discharged (giving rise, in part, to the
9V6 I measured earlier) but measure properly after a dose of
electrons?
I realise that my reading doesn't imply it's going to stay at 12V8
under load...
On a related point, any tips for suppliers of good quality batteries?
Previous ones for this car (ye anciente 306 XSi phase I) seem to have
had a tendancy to discharge if the car is left for more than a few
days, which I used to put down to a high quiescent current drain from
my old-ish CD player. But I'm wondering if I should actually check the
drain current with the ignition off, and look for possible sources of
a high drain.
Thanks
J^n
Harry Bloomfield
> FYI, having just charged the thing up with the dumb charger, I
> measure the off-load voltage as 12.8V. From a bit of reading (my
> knowledge of lead-acid batteries seems to have faded...) this seems
> about right for a battery in good condition.
That is about right.
>
> From previous comments here it does seem likely that the battery is at
> fault. But I'm curious about the failure mode - is it likely for one
> dodgy cell to be failing when discharged (giving rise, in part, to the
> 9V6 I measured earlier) but measure properly after a dose of
> electrons?
You can only tell by measuring the voltage across each cell
individually, which is made a not so easy thing to do on a modern
battery.
>
> I realise that my reading doesn't imply it's going to stay at 12V8
> under load...
> But I'm wondering if I should actually check the
> drain current with the ignition off, and look for possible sources of
> a high drain.
Again that is technically, not an easy thing to check - I know, I
tried. The current consuming items tends to gradually go into low power
sleep mode over the first 30 minutes or so after switching everything
off. The last thing my car turns off is the remote control receiver
after 4 weeks of being left undisturbed.
Generally you should be looking for it consuming less than 30mA after
the 30 minutes, but any disturbance of the 12v supply will wake
everything back up.
My problem was my car battery being randomly flat, which seemed to
point to something not shutting off, but I was unable to find anything
at all. I put a new battery in which partially fixed it, followed by a
new alternator because the old one was slightly below spec.. I have had
no problems since then. The old battery seemed to test out fine off the
car.
Adam Aglionby
wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Jan 2010 07:16:53 -0800, Adam Aglionby wrote:
> > Thats the answer afraid, cold weather is bad for elderly people and
> > lead acid batteries.
>
> In what way? I didn't think they provided as much power when cold - but
> I'd always heard that lead-acid cells have a shorter lifespan the *hotter*
> the climate...
Cold will kill a marginal battery, the SG of the electrolyte drops and
if its really cold can freeze solid, guess in marginal cases enough
ice crystals to short plates.
> (our daily-use car, with 170k on the clock, still has its original 12yo
> battery - I've always put that down to the fact that it's sodding
> freezing here for half the year)
Had 3 vans that have needed new batteries on or near shortest day,
this year Mum`s car ate its battery on Christmas Day, Halfords are
actually reasonable and open Boxing Day.
Cheers
Adam
Adam Aglionby
> Hi all
> FYI, having just charged the thing up with the dumb charger, I
> measure the off-load voltage as 12.8V. From a bit of reading (my
> knowledge of lead-acid batteries seems to have faded...) this seems
> about right for a battery in good condition.
>
> From previous comments here it does seem likely that the battery is at
> fault. But I'm curious about the failure mode - is it likely for one
> dodgy cell to be failing when discharged (giving rise, in part, to the
> 9V6 I measured earlier) but measure properly after a dose of
> electrons?
>
> I realise that my reading doesn't imply it's going to stay at 12V8
> under load...
Used to be habit of a certain large Fast Fit centre to use a battery
load tester, like a 12V electric fire, a bit excessively to persuade a
customer they needed a new battery after the vehicle wouldn`t start
after being `tested`
As previously mentioned battery in me Mums car died on Christmas Day,
save having to find the itermittent alarm fault now, batteries can a
sometimes bit annoyingly live on in a living dead type manner.
Cheers
Adam
Steve Walker
I'd just see how things go. My wife was ill for a lengthy period and
couldn't drive. I kept swapping the smart charger back and forth between
her car and my kit car, but then forgot for a bit; went on holiday; forgot
for a bit longer. When I remembered, her battery was dead, wouldn't even
bring the engine management light on properly. The smart charger refused to
charge it, so I gave it overnight on the dumb charger, then finished off
with the smart charger and left it trickling for a while. Amazingly it
recovered quite well. It didn't hold a charge for quite as many weeks as
before, but was fine once she was driving again. She's since been ill again
and a combination of neglect and cold weather finally killed it off after
another 12 months or so.
SteveW
Jason
> Hi All
> following recommendations here I bought one of the 'smart car
> battery chargers' from Lidl last year. The first couple of times I
> used it it seemed fine. I've had occasion to have to recharge the car
> battery a couple of times during the recent weather and have had
> problems. I'm wondering if it's me ... or if the thing is not working
> properly.
>
> Basically the unit goes back to 'idle' mode - with just the main
> 'standby' LED on - after a few seconds/minutes. If I press the mode
> button again the LEDs start advancing to the selected mode (light/
> normal/heavy duty etc.), but then the unit is likely to immediately
> flip back to standby.
This happened to me recently with a Halfords smart charger. Turned out it was
simply detecting that the battery was duff, and sure enough the batter failed
completely a week later.
So - it could be telling you to get a new battery.
-- Jason
Dave Liquorice
> Cold will kill a marginal battery, the SG of the electrolyte drops and
> if its really cold can freeze solid,
Aye, had a couple of car batteries give up the ghost when the weather
starts to get colder. One I could tell by the air temp how well (or
not) it was going to start the car. On a cold morning it would
struggle, next day a few degrees warmer and it would be fine.
--
Cheers
Dave.
jkn
FYI I see that the smart chargers are currently back on sale at
Lidl. As others have said, a good buy at £12.99 (and it sounds like my
charger at least is fine...)
Cheers
J^n
Andrew Gabriel
If the battery is very flat, it detects it as a 6V battery, and
it reaches the fully charged voltage for a 6V battery in a matter
of seconds, and switches off.
There's no way around it with just this charger. I coupled up another
power supply for a minute to act as a charger to get the battery up to
enough that the smart charger detects it as a 12V battery (a low current
wall wart will do for a minute, but it may burn out if left too long),
and then the smart charger works OK.
Car batteries don't survive flattening this much too often.
--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]
Tinkerer
"Adam Aglionby" <ledl...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:c69cfaab-b56a-446e...@21g2000yqj.googlegroups.com...
I looked in Halfords in November because I decided to change the 11 year old
battery on our Pug 406 rather than risk another winter (glad I did).
Halfords wanted �90. Fortunately I have a Costco card and got a Bosch for
�56.
--
Tinkerer
Tinkerer
"jkn" <jkn...@nicorp.f9.co.uk> wrote in message
news:83c40acd-e5a6-4c46...@j5g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
> Hi all
> FYI, having just charged the thing up with the dumb charger, I
> measure the off-load voltage as 12.8V. From a bit of reading (my
> knowledge of lead-acid batteries seems to have faded...) this seems
> about right for a battery in good condition.
>
> From previous comments here it does seem likely that the battery is at
> fault. But I'm curious about the failure mode - is it likely for one
> dodgy cell to be failing when discharged (giving rise, in part, to the
> 9V6 I measured earlier) but measure properly after a dose of
> electrons?
>
> I realise that my reading doesn't imply it's going to stay at 12V8
> under load...
>
> On a related point, any tips for suppliers of good quality batteries?
<snip>
As I mentioned in my earlier post in this thread. If you have access to a
Costco card they do Bosch batteries. I picked up one for our Pug 406 for
�56 (Halfords wanted �90).
--
Tinkerer
Clint Sharp
>A bog standard 'dumb' charger goes into charge mode rather than top-up
>mode. When I last tried & failed to use the Lidl charger, I measured
>the battery terminal voltage beforehand at ... oh crumbs, not sure I
>can remember. Either 6.9V or 9.6V ;-/
>
>If the charger is screwed and I can find the receipt I will take it
>back for replacement or refund under warranty, but since it seems a
>good unit and they ren't on sale at the moment I thought I'd check
>here to see if any of this sounds familiar...
Not screwed, the battery is too flat at 9.6v or 6.9v and the charger
thinks it's knackered.
>
> Thanks
> J^n
--
Clint Sharp