Don't throw your old battery charger away...FIX IT and make it SAFER!
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- Опубліковано 13 жов 2024
- Here's an old vintage battery charger I recently saved from the garbage. It has the same problem pretty much ALL these old chargers have, but we'll fix that and add some safety features. These are great for charging lead acid or sealed lead acid batteries (SLA), and can often charge batteries other modern chargers won't even attempt to charge, so they have a usefulness and should not be discarded. But how SAFE are they? Let's see how we can repair one and make it safer at the same time.
35A bridge rectifiers: amzn.to/3N4tfgB
Product specs:
Auto circuit breaker
Full wave rectifier (center tapped)
6 volt and 12 volt battery charging
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#electronics #repair #safety
I would have put that rectifier on that aluminum plate because aluminum is the best heat dissipator. If you take a big chunk of aluminum and heat one corner eventually fairly quickly the heat will travel clear to the other side you could do the same thing with cast iron and it takes forever for the whole thing to get hot. The more you know public service announcement
I rebuilt one of these exact same chargers years back with bridge rectifiers. I wired two rectifier’s in series to get a voltage drop to get it more in line to what it should be. I believe you get about 1 volt of drop per rectifier if I remember correctly. Kbpc5010 is what I had on hand and what was used in my application. It was a charger for a friend of mine who’s dad used it when he was younger and passed away . His mom and dad owned a western auto in morehead ky several years ago. He still uses the charger to this day. Great videos! I really enjoy your amp repair videos!
Cool video! I have an old Sears/Allstate charger similar to those in the video, except mine has a timer. My dad used it for decades. It still works!
I love your videos when you do things like this...You prevent a lot of stuff from winding up in a landfill somewhere...KUDOS BRAD...KEEP IT UP...!!!
Good job buddy.
Nice rectifier upgrade.
(Not to be a cridic, but)
i would have left the cardboard and the aluminum plate just like they had it. That would have made a great heatsink (insulated from the outer case) and your idea about a small electric fan , would be a great upgrade.
I'm currently
restoring/upgrading
A similar little charger.
Glad to see im not the only one who would rather fix an oldie than buy cheap plastc replacement . 😁👍
Wow, thats odd - I just took two vintage battery chargers apart as they both had 3A-4A 6v transformers and I'm short of filament supply transformers. Oh well, part of my grandad's stuff from the 1950's will live on!
I agree with you on Walmart. I also worked for them for 4 and 1/2 years. They treat the Employees like a Hellscape too. I am like you rescue thing like your Battery Charger.
Even if the transformer was trashed, the chassis would make for a very cool guitar amp. A push pull 6AQ5 setup would be right at home in there!
I also get a lot of satisfaction from reviving old gadgets that are going to be useful to me. Drives my Mrs crazy sometimes...
That's what we're here for.
WestenAuto home appliances,tires,bicycles,tools ,children toys,shotguns ,rifles,watches,knives,furniture,bedroom suits,telvision stereo,8track tapes,guitars,strings much much more back in the day.
Good timing. I have the same charger that was my Dad’s. Now I can safely get it working again. Thanks for taking the time to document your work.
My family owned a large Western Auto Store in the seventies and eighties. We carried everything but clothing. We sold that exact charger and i still have a working 10amp model in my tool stash. I also have the newer six amp automatic (regulated) design.
Sure miss stores like Western Auto.
14.25 is perfect for charging 12 volt batteries. The alternator in most vehicles puts out 14.25 @ 60 amps
Ideal voltage is temperature dependent from what I've read. 13.8V to 14.1V seems ideal, so I'm right in the range.
Thanks brad I have a couple of old Car battery chargers that I am working on rewire and all that w/o schematics (Sears / other) and this video helps make sense of the wiring.
I just bought a vintage old Schumacher battery charger last week, so this video is pretty timely! I really hope more of these get saved than tossed! Newer battery chargers have digital circuitry that will sense how much charge the battery has in it, and if it’s totally dead then it won’t charge it. That’s worthless in my book. I need to be able to charge dead batteries, not just low ones.
*edit* I commented before watching the whole video and just got to the part where you mention circuit protection on the newer chargers 😂
I just found a 10 year old Schumacher on top of a dumpster. It's new enough where it has a lcd screen but it's not a smart charger. I actually had a similar one for years and used it on my mowers / quads and car. This one is not working, it reads 0.0v on every battery I've tried and makes a quick arc/pop when you first plug it in. I'm far from skilled when it comes to diagnosing and repairing electronics but I'm starting to learn.
I've got a vintage charger I just can't throw out. It also has a starter function 100A. Unit weighs a good 20lbs. The shear mass of it screams quality. They don't make them like this anymore.
And these charger are not too smart 4 u, compared to smart charger, they think to be smarter than the operator behind using the charger.. "Oh, your battery is below 10v, i'm not charging it !"
Great Idea. I have a newer SMART charger that the smart part doesn't work very well anymore. I might just have to bypass all of that and convert it to use an old style Timer. Lawnmower batteries always seem to get so low that I have to jump it to another battery to get the voltage high enough for "Smart" charger to work on it. I am old enough that at the Full Service Mobile Station we used to have to add acid to new batteries then charge them before we could install them. We had a monster charger that could boil the acid if it ran too long. But if you had a REALLY Dead battery you could boil it a few times and rejuvenate a battery that otherwise was complete junk
I miss Western Auto. It was a US great chain back when the US was still great.
Nice video! I have an Everstart somewhat modern charger, but its a dumb charger. I had marked it in tape that it doesn't charge! I had opportunities to toss it out, but I just said no, I want to fix it! Well your video made sense!
I bought a Western Auto brand 12/24 V battery charger with auto/manual modes that was $21 shipped to my house. I use it to charge my boat, riding mower, & spare car batteries, & so far (1 1/2 years), it works great. I had an older charger that also worked great, but I sold it along with my old bass boat. I had that thing for over 20 years. I doubt this new one will last that long, but hey, it was cheap.
This one could be converted into a 12/24V by not using the center tap and going with just the bridge rectifier.
Most of the classic old chargers will charge a flat battery, not like the more fancy types nice fix. 🇬🇧
With the newer type chargers you can still use them on extremely dead batteries by 'jump starting' them. The charger has to see a voltage above a certain level to be able to start. Jumping another 12 volt battery that is good in parallel to the bad one gives the charger a good starting voltage that it likes and then the charger starts working. Then you can remove the jump start battery off and the charger continues working. I had to do this trick a few times when I let my tractor's battery set too long and the voltage got too low.
As soon as you wired up the bridge rectifier, I was thinking "The meter.... he's totally forgotten the panel meter!" Was wondering how long it would take you to catch that. 😄
You're a sneaky dude, love the repair.
We still have a Western Auto down here in Texas. My favorite item from them is my lever action 30/30.
Insert a car brake light bulb in series with the output to current limit the charger. The bulb will regulate the current going into these smaller AH batteries. Place a switch across the bulb to bypass it and get the full amps out for larger batteries. Great video!
I regret throwing away my dads old sears one 😢 I can’t tell you how many times that regret has sunk in over the countless times I cursed myself out in my head every time since when I’ve needed to get 12volts power inside the house !
I have two different similarly styled chargers like these. Neither work. I inherited a ton of vintage tools and I like the antique look of these which is why I held onto them. Analog devices are good to learn on, too. This was quite informative. I'll have to add new ammeters to them both, as well, since to plastic lense was missing on them both. Needle on one as well. . The reason I'm interested in fixing them is like you said, they're dumb. You can "overvolt" a really dead battery as long as the amps stay reasonable and it will help to desulfate the cells. Just gotta monitor their temperature and make sure you don't explode them. But if you desulfate, discharge, repeat a few times, batteries that tolerate load tests, but maybe can't hold a charge well can be restored and their life extended significantly and I, for one, am tired of dropping a couple 2-3 bills on new batteries for all these cars, food truck and trailer, and devices. Our president seems hellbent on crashing bicycles and economies but he's all outta bicycles and we're feeling it pretty heavily. I looked into getting a desulfator, too, which will be a maintenance tool, but some of these batteries I have will need more juice than what these damn smart gadgets will push. Good vid. Appreciate the time you took to explain certain things that my knowledge of is lacking in, though I have a good understanding of the concepts.
"Father, the power-chord is torn!" - "God, son, didn't you learn anything, watching me in the garage all the time? Cut it clean, take a good inch off from the isolation and drill 'em ends together! Done!" 🤣
I had an old Shumacher Deep cycle charger for 15 years and it was probable that it was 20 years old when I got it.MADE IN USA.Since I use deep cycle marine batteries for my pool vacuum( similar to a trolling motor with debris bag).That finally gave out 5 years ago and since I have went through 5-6 harbor freight models that are all circuit board 's and weigh about 3 oz.Junk the copper is diluted down and they don't hold up.I have recently found in the trash a older Heavy Duty Duralast Walmart maybe? I did buy a NOCO electronic type and 2 years everyday and still charging! I'm suprised.Ace is the place.I have never been let down by finding what I need to rig almost any project.The reason I added last comment you were just talking about Western Auto and True Value which I miss.Ace is of course outsourced from China these days but you can get help if needed!
Western Auto also sold Wizard brand hand tools which were considered top quality. I have a 1/2" socket drive that will probably never wear out along with a bunch of their sockets.
I have have one of those and it still works
Exactly - Centre tapped transformer with 2 selenium diodes -> 2 x half wave wave rectifiers - like old valve amps with a GZ34 double tube diode
Picked up a old charger too , same selenium diode setup, changed to a bridge rectifier, two AC transformer input leads to the selenium diode array, one DC output from the selenium diode array, I checked whether it was the + or _ then plugged into the bridge rectifier the same polarity and then plugged AC inputs in to the bridge rectifier, one DC output was unattached, charger runs at 15v high 10v low setting, amps is increased overall from its original output, thing will charge up cinder blocks now.😂
I still have my dad’s old Revelation 12 gauge shotgun purchased from Western Auto long ago.
Very relaxing and enjoyable, even informative! 🍻
You get higher DC voltages with a bridge vs. a full-wave. Also, with a bridge you don't need to use that center tap at all.
Without the center tap, the voltages double to 12/24V.
@@TheGuitologist Yes. In this instance you had to, because the original used full-wave. Maybe I worded it incorrectly.
I just love point to point wiring. Nice job Brad!
mmm me thinkseth you would have done a lot better to put the aluminum plate back and used that for heat sink. That thin steel case will not conduct heat away from the diode very well. I will bet that if you load that heavy enough that the output pulls down to 8 volts there would be 100degF difference in the diode temp on .090" aluminium versus .026 steel. Mounting that on thin steel might actually be worse that having the diode floating in free air so it can convect away the heat.
It was a fun gag to swap the manual rake on a wave solder machine. It had a pool of molten solder that the boards would travel across. You needed to rake off the dross and gunk to expose clean shiny solder occasionally. Stainless steel was good, but if you swapped in an alumium one it would burn the s*** outta your hand, HUGE difference in thermal conductivity.
A couple upgrades for a good dumb charger like that. One is a fuse holder with the cap so you can replace it without taking all the screws out of the case. The other is a switch and a bulb in series on the DC side for current limit so you dont blow the fuse by overloading the output. Run it current limited until the battery voltage comes up as indicated by the bulb getting dim, then switch the bulb out of series so you can achieve full DC output without voltage drop. I'm in the market for a good ole dumb charger like that cause I am sick of the smart one that are so educated they dont wanna do any real work, especially when you need them most.
Hmmm - edit
Center tap - you use full wave rectification (2 diods)
No center tap you use full wave bridge (bridge rectifier)
Is this correct?
You can use a simple full wave rectifier either way, but you can only use bridge without center tap.
Yes they had Tubes and Electrical Parts also! I am 74 and used to shop there.
I'm currently trying to fix my battery charger so this is a great video
If I were to do this, how would a person know what amp size bridge rectifier to get? Not just for a battery charger but for any project? How do you properly size them to the job?
I use a 12 or 6 volt bulb as a fuse works good if something shorts the bulb will go out also good indicator that it’s charging
What’s up dude’s & dudette’s Brad the Trashologist here.
Love it, I do the same thing. My son and I go for a bike ride every trash day eve to see what cool stuff we can find
OMG a Western Auto product it takes me back
Cool, coincidentally i found one of these not long ago, Lester Electrical 24volt 5 amp lead acid charger, looks old but not as old as this one, like has wooden supports in the transformer, but definatley from a more recent time, and its only putting out 12 volts. I thought this was the video to help and it does offer some insight but seems to have smart protection thats smarter then me so I'll just have to leave it alone. There was some old japaense wooden plates with it too, just dumped in an alley parking lot, some wooden shoes too that looked like art pieces, no wonder the Japanese have a good reputation with guitars , they seem to know how to work with wood.
Damnit, Brad! Now I have 2 earwormy tunes that’ll be stuck in my head for who knows how long!!!!
Thanks a lot!!! 😂
If you fix the blue one, can you add a switch that changes the amperage charge rate and show us how to do that?
Hilarious getting horrible songs stuck in a perpetual loop😂. Walmart does that to me also.
LOL, dude I feel you on the random, weird/crappy tunes getting stuck in your head for a day or two. Usually it's the last thing I heard, whether I was paying attention to it or not. It's funny how that works.. Must be a subconscious thing. 😅
Anyways, great video.. I too have a battery charger that I _really_ need to fix, as it's my only one like it. It's an old, bigger Sears unit on wheels w/ a handle. It's been intermittent to now dead as a door nail. Don't know what the dealio is, but hopefully it's something simple. I'll definitely dig into it after seeing this! ✌️
Make a video how it goes.
So, if you are getting a reduced voltage output is it always the rectifier? I garbage picked an old charger -but it's an automatic- and it's putting out 9v.
Very cool. Thanks again, Brad!
I have a older 10/2 amp charger & a newer model & it is my opinion that politician's effected the change on battery chargers from watching movies, rendering modern chargers useless for a dead battery! Thank God I have a older model!
Oh wow! That looks almost exactly like one I was given years ago! I hate modern computerized chargers because they're fragile junk! Short the leads by accident or cross connect the battery and they blow. Also if the battery is discharged too much, the newer models won't charge it. I'm trying to find more of the old style units like this so I have reliable charging capability.
Our hardware store with helpful folks has chained off the power tools first and now the hand tools. They stay with till you select what you want or need. Kind of takes the fun out of impulse buying. But otherwise stuff disappears.
Great video! I am working on the same type of charger and am having to figure out how it is wired after I replaced the Selenium rectifiers. Did you ever finish the schematic? If so could you include it in the information section. Thank you.
I just have to make another commitment. Man Brad you fucking killing me about Walmart shopping, I could hardly breath after that 🤣🤪😜😅
You're right about Walmart. The hardware section is horrible haha
24v transformers usually always put out 28 then the diodes drop like1.4 because 2 of them are used for steering and there's a 7806 and 7812 I suspect
What brand spade terminals do you use and also I noticed when you twist wires together you twist to the left ... So on behalf of all right handed electricians .... STOP IT !!! 😂🤣😅Great vid as always and thx for posting ...
I went to school For repair of tv and radios and one day A selenium rectifier caught on fire it flashed. maybe for1 millionth of a second and there was no fire but the smoke pored out and the fire department had to evacuate the 5 story building that was 1 square city block.
all because apace of selenium The size of a small pinhead over heated.
so be carful with those !
It has been real and it has been fun , thanks for the Video
well if she doesnt find you handsome she better find you handy :),,,, been enjoying these repair vids latley, have a great day brad...
Hey There. Since You work on different things, do You work on record player turntable adjustments ?? Thanks.
If you saw my old battery charger... you'd definitely say "Throw it out!" We called it the 'Widow Maker'. lol
I have 50 amps charger with 30sec boosting , i replace the selenium diode with full wave rectifier and my charging voltage is around 15.8. What can i do to drop the voltage around 14 volts
Put a couple more diodes in series on each side of the rectifier output. Make sure theyre properly rated. A couple of these on each side should work: www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/diodes-incorporated/SBR1045SD1-T/3677989?PMax%20Shopping_Product_Medium%20ROAS%20Categories&CjwKCAjwufq2BhAmEiwAnZqw8nIG33mgNMFnTK36FIPfmFtIVZahwkNxfpX2rT4LEzKaJmz17F3uCxoCjeUQAvD_BwE&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwufq2BhAmEiwAnZqw8nIG33mgNMFnTK36FIPfmFtIVZahwkNxfpX2rT4LEzKaJmz17F3uCxoCjeUQAvD_BwE
Them chargers are getting harder to find and the people that have them are proud of them.
Long as the two lines don't actually touch, I guess, 🤣🤣 "Course, if YOU happen to touch 'em you're likely gonna do that "burbbling" sound effect from the song "Wipeout"... ⚡⚡⚡🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
What were they DRINKING..on that cord repair!! 🍻
great video, very helpful. I have the identical twin to your other Kelsey Stuart charger. it works, but is very weak. I'd say it's due for an upgrade. BTW it was my Dads and I labeled it 1971 with a Dymo label gun (along with many things that Xmas) Please do a video on that one in the future!
Western Auto must be similar to a 'Jack and Harry's' we used to have here up in New England back in the '50s . . .keep up the videos as they are enjoyable albeit away from the amp work ! ! ! !.....gotta keep busy !
Great video i have one i am working on now and you gave me a good laugh with walmart and cream song🤣🤣🤣
Will there be an Episode 2 to verify whether this upgrade worked (safely) , or not ... ?
I guess that if there isn't another Brad upload then things didn't work out so well !!
The battery I was charging got pretty hot so I stopped charging it. I have several of these 12V sealed batteries I got for my electric mower and kids ride on toys several years ago. They are pretty old now. One of them recently crapped out with a shorted cell. So I think this battery was a bad test. The charger seems to be doing what it's supposed to.
Sketchy splicing? In my sister-in-law's old house the previous owner left about a 30 foot Romex cable, still plugged into the breaker panel, run all the way down a wall and then all the way back, bare wire ends wrapped in a literal Walmart plastic bag, all stuffed into a dangling loose metal j-box hidden behind drywall. My wife and I were renting a floor there and that was in our bedroom. NFPA be damned!
I get a song stuck in my head I have to listen to it in its entirety. The last time I got one in my head it was karma chameleon. Absolute nightmare until I found it on UA-cam and suffered through the whole thing.
That's the only way to erase the stuff on your head.
Darn, I thought you would have turned into a Champ. Western Auto and Otasco also used to sell some guns and ammo (.22 for .39 for 50). We had a Western Auto on Main Street in Aiken until fairly recently.
Ha! I know what video you were watch at 20:00 mark. "You're *Aaaalwaaayyyzzzz* welcome to come out and chat in my live streams."
Looking forward to it.
How is the total amperage supply reading on the variac lower than the amp meter on charger?
Is it because the variac is reading 120v AC amperage and the charger is 12DC amps?
The one thing I noticed you didn't do was check the polarity of the power chord. neutral to neutral and hot to hot, If you reverse these you liven up the case and you might get as long as you were isolated a faint buzz on the cases side. So check your work !!
Brad the guitologist? More like Greg the handyman as of late.
Oh and next to no meat too in Walmart least the one in Westfield Mass is like that
Great video as usual ! Thank you 🙏❤️🎶
I could use your help a 200-amp Schumacher charger with the digital display the digital display has died I want to bypass it just so when I turn it on it's charging and bypasses the whole digital display not sure exactly how I'm going to do that but unfortunately no parts exist for it like everything nowadays
The best video I’ve seen 👍🇦🇺
🎵
He was the wizard of a thousand kings
And I chanced to meet him one night wandering
He told me tales and he drank my wine
Me and my magic man kind of feeling fine 🎶
Looks like a hand wired Marshall 🤘!!
Measure the voltage across each diode.
Do you have a confession to make Brad @8:00 ? ;🤣🤣😂😂
The White Wire You Wrecked I'd Put A Whole New One On
Awesome video.
My first 10 speed bike was purchased at Western auto when I was 12 years old. I thought I was a Rich kid for a while.
FYI in the automotive World a 12 volt battery gets charged at a rate anywhere between 13.7 volts and 14.7 volts to be optimal. The he more you know!
I enjoyed this video
Another reason to get and keep and old(er) battery charger is the new "smart" chargers will not charge a 12V car battery that has rub down to under 6 volts like if you screwed up and left the courtesy lights on over the week end. Some will not work with battery that has run down below 11 volts,,,,like leaving your car in the garage when you go on a 2 week vacation and forget to unhook the battery,
I always question the wisdom of fuse holders INSIDE a piece of equipment when a $3 panel mount push breaker would get the job done better. - could have left the aluminum heat sink in place too and stuck some silicon grease under the bridge.
Nonsense. You can still buy brand new manual 2/10/50A chargers for less than $50. Harbor Freight, Baby. Harbor Freight.
can i substitute a 400V - 12 amp rectifier with a 400V -25 amp rectifier I'm trying to fix a generator.
Yes
@@TheGuitologist got the part today. Now the generator is working THANKS !
I woulda reused that aluminum strap from the old diode setup as a heatsink on the new one. Just sayin'...
That's so true IQ points go down just by looking at it!!! Fucking AAaa. That's absolutely Brilliant. Thank you for sharing this 🙏
I remember those old Orion logos, lol
How does one contact you about repairing an amp marshall tube amp
If you don't like Walmart, don't dream of Target. Walmart has great Super Tech fluids. Target doesn't even sell a single oil filter.
I was taught in highschool auto shop to never leave a battery sitting on the ground. It might not be a good thing especially while charging
I was taught that too at my dad’s gas station. We always sat the battery on an old wooden Coke case.
Don't know what the oldest 'Old Wives Tale' is, but that ones gotta be close!
Count me in believing that is total old wives tale fiction. Most OLD cars & tractors I've ever seen, the battery box bottom was none other than conductive steel, which generally conducts way better than dirt or cement. Now then, with that said, if the battery has all kinds of crud and dirt all over it, it might be possible for all that to when damp somewhat form a semi-conductor. Even in that instance however, battery is just going to short presumably the path of least resistance being the shortest distance between the terminals on the top of battery (or side as the case, pun unintended, might be). Set your plastic case battery on just about any kind of surface your heart desires, including shiny copper foil & have a happy life my friend.
I like to wipe vintage items with oil rather than to paint. Maybe I'm lazy but if it looks old I leave it age in peace.