Girly question re battery chargers...

cepheus

Does trickle charging still ruin the Diodes in the alternator of modern cars?

In the days when I had cars in which this fact was important, I recall removing one of the terminals of the battery (possible the positive one) to avoid this problem.

Lum

pinkteapot wrote: »

Trying to decide whether to take the jump kit back to Halfords and ask for a refund, or assume that I'm being rubbish and didn't do it right. Unfortunately I have no other dead cars to test it on.

If you're getting a new battery and you're not in the habit of leaving your lights on when parked, then you probably wont be needing a jump start kit for a few years now.

birkee

Azari wrote: »

Both of those links say that some chargers will not charge a flat battery.

I was never disputing that.

I was merely saying that some will and I know that because I've done it.

When I asked for a link I meant one that explains why the laws of chemistry (according to you) fail to operate if the battery is flat.

I know it's old now, but one has to ask.
How does the charger work, if the battery is totally dead?
That's like expecting the charger to work if the connectors are just hanging in the air, or connected to an insulator.

birkee

Flyboy152 wrote: »

I don't think you "authority" gave you much of an insight on how battery jump packs work.

P.S. How do you maintain a maintenance free battery?

??? By not letting it get flat.
Maintenance free, means more calcium in the plates, meaning LESS water loss, but they can still NEED topping up if treated badly.
It's just a NORMAL battery. I've had to lever the filler plugs out of some so called "maintenance free" batteries.

birkee

forgotmyname wrote: »

Cheap jumpstarters are rubbish, They dont put out enough power. Cheap leads,

I had a pair of chunky jump leads, Wire broke so i stripped it back to refix and found the copper core was only
about 2mm thick. Compared that to some cheaper leads i bought that had an 8mm core.

I've often wondered WHERE these jump starters get their power from.
As a starter motor is a 'short circuit' when stationary, it will briefly want something like 2000 Amps momentarily. What pigeon powered battery can do that?
As for thin cables. More than a brief usage means they will in effect, be electric fire elements, but of course the onboard battery will die before that happens.

reeac

cepheus wrote: »

Does trickle charging still ruin the Diodes in the alternator of modern cars?

In the days when I had cars in which this fact was important, I recall removing one of the terminals of the battery (possible the positive one) to avoid this problem.

I thought that that was stated to be necessary during any charging to avoid diodes being zapped by voltage spikes which might come from the charger. I'm not sure how real an effect it was though.

reeac

birkee wrote: »

I know it's old now, but one has to ask.
How does the charger work, if the battery is totally dead?
That's like expecting the charger to work if the connectors are just hanging in the air, or connected to an insulator.

I suspect that smart chargers still inject a small current intoeven a very flat battery and over the course of maybe half an hour build up enough battery voltage to enable the charging to proceed as normal.

Le73Uq86Uv

Get a new battery.

Simples.

birkee

reeac wrote: »

I suspect that smart chargers still inject a small current intoeven a very flat battery and over the course of maybe half an hour build up enough battery voltage to enable the charging to proceed as normal.

Nope!..........

reeac

birkee wrote: »

Nope!..........

Any evidence?