BOLTR: Solar (brand) Charger | Get what you pay for. Sometimes.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ม.ค. 2019
- I went to the wholesalers and got a low grade charger from a good industrial brand. To my delight, it's not ridiculous junk.
Thank you for helping me make these teardowns! Early access here
/ ave - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
The rental car I had a little while ago had a smart alternator in it. It would run the alternator at a low enough duty cycle that the vehicle voltage was 12.2v when driving, if you switched the lights on it would run at 13.8v, and occasionally it would spike up to a good 15.1v or so for periodic de-sulphating, because it was a sealed calcium battery. So it was constantly maintaining the battery as I drove. I thought that was kinda cool.
The microcontroller is from Elan. A Taiwanese company that seems to focus on high volume low cost markets (much like Padauk, maker of the infamous $0.03 micro that EEVBlog discussed).
Thanks man!
Nice work! I am in electronics and never heard of them.
Figured Elan out too - although i've only seen them do touchpad controllers in some laptops.
Khron's Cave Most laptops actually.
@@johnfrancisdoe1563 I don't know about "most" - i've seen loads of Synaptics and Alps, way more often than Elan.
Negative Temperature Coefficient = NTC -> high temp gives low resistance. NTC can be used as inrush limiter. Positive Tempco is often used for over-current protection.
yep it is to stop the inrush of charging the large capacitor, it is high resistance when cold, plug it in cap charges with high resistance and the NTC's temperature rises lowering its resistance and the charger can function more efficiently.
“Snow covered the solar panels”
So what you’re saying is that solar roadways don’t work?
Frickin hell!
Nah, solar roadways work fine, in the winter they just keep the roads warm using heating elements.
No reason why that won't work...
Solar roadways don't work because of the durability of surface materials. Anything that we have that's durable and clear is also susceptible to scratches, scratched surface is no longer clear.
The thorium-powered ones will sure do nicely in snow
ha ha another thunderfoot (er).. nice one..
just wait until they salt the roads and people drive on the salt
Ave.....the little woman would like a teardown and dissertation on a Kurig pod type coffee maker if you get a minute. Part of your home industrial series.
Check the back catalog I believe it was done years ago.
Tried taking one of those things apart once, it was pretty much the most frustratingly assembled electronic device I'd ever seen. God knows how they actually got the thing together. Wasn't impressed.
I have one of those de-sulphaters. It's the model : 240v extension cord straight to the battery.
Mr Reaper kids love that model!!!!
Gitter done!
Send vid plz
Lincoln stick welder gets er done quick stiff and in a hurry.
Yeah I thought that's what a welder was for? Just maybe not an A/C buzz box 😄
As someone who designs industrial PCB's this Battery charger is the farthest thing from "Pro/Industrial grade".
The first clue is the PCB, it looks very much like a phenolic board, not a fibreglass (FR-4) board. Phenolic is inferior to FR-4 in almost every aspect, there is absolutely no reason to use phenolic except for cost. Realistically, the cost difference between an FR-4 board and a phenolic board really is really quite small in the grand scheme of things.
Secondly, heatsinks are not fastened to the board. Heatsinks (especially as big as the ones on that board) must be mechanically fastened to the PCB, something that large will undoubtedly fatigue the leads of the components mounted to it in short order unless it's well fastened to the board. I do not see either solder tabs or screws holding the heatsinks to the board.
Thirdly, the large 10W power resistor on the top right of the board appears to be mounted directly against the board. This is an absolute no-no. Power resistors(1W+) must always be mounted raised above the board to properly dissipate heat and to avoid burning the board.
@@cambridgemart2075 Chinese CMs call this "Yellow Glue" which was designed to mechanically reinforce stuff (wires). AvE, it is not "silastic" aka "silicone bathtub caulk". Silastic is soft and bendable, this stuff is hard as a rock. Otherwise not a bad analysis for a 300 pound gorilla (except for the inductors mentioned elsewhere).
What do you think of the thermal transfer 'rubber' between the mosfets and heatsink? I trust paste over that any day.
agree, quite cheap construction
@Richard C - Those are called "Sil-pads", they are made of silicone and are used to electrically isolate the heatsink from the tabs of the component. From the research I've done and my own experience spec'ing them, they work quite a bit better than you'd expect.
You'd only spec a sil pad because you require the electrical isolation from tab to heatsink; otherwise, paste is the cheaper option.
@Simon A All things considered, there is really no good reason to use phenoic over FR-4. I don't know the specs off the top of my head, but say you're right in that phenolic has better HV insulation. This can easily be mitigated with proper creepage/clearances when designing the board. You literally only choose phenolic because you're trying to cut costs; just going off memory and rough approximations, you'd only saving ~5-10 cents per PCB instead of going with FR-4 (for a board the size of that battery charger).
That thing that you pointed out as grounding off the heatsink, with the choke on it black wires, that's a thermistor.
Those "7-segment number chips" are actually little plastic boxes with seven SMT LEDs under light pipes to the surface diffuser. Very cheap to make, cheap and easy to repair, and very cool.
The Devil In The Circuit New ones maybe. Really old ones no. These 7-segment LED blocks predate SMD by decades.
Hate these self testing electronic chargers because they tend to never want to charge anything because the battery failed some test. Nothing better then a good old 1960's battery charger that will melt the battery into a pile of smoking goo if needed......
Them 1960's fuckers are the business for Jerry rigging a polystyrene hot wire from!
@@prdoohan
Great stuff for us model airplane folks who like to cut foam wing cores, wings, bodies, medium parts etc
Trick is to hook up the smart charger to the dead battery, and then connect a partly charged battery to the dead one before turning the charger on.
It will sense the good battery and start charging, and then you disconnect the good battery.
@@ke6gwf Or just buy a charger thats not designed for idiots and skip all that l0l
You can trick the newer ones by piggybacking a good 12v battery to the one that does not pass the test, some of the new fandagled ones will not supply voltage if battery below 11.2v ish.. So the other battery puts it back to a healthy range of 12.4v ish and wham bam you have restored your once throwaway dead battery.
That dream machine moment sent my cat into a tailspin.
It's amazing to hear you call 2011 old school componentry.
So I talked to the guy I knew at Fluke (retired)...he said to contact Grainger for parts for your meter.
I like grainger , but my wallet don't , nor my wife .
@@texasdeeslinglead2401 -- I can't say I disagree. Grainger has always been off putting with their pricing.
@@pmgodfrey pricey but great products.
Grainger... Half of what I've bought isn't what I ordered, a third was broken when I got it.... And the wait just to talk to a rep ... I've been going to Fastenal for most things lately, and other suppliers for what they don't carry.
Grainger was the only place in NJ i could find that had the correct condenser fan motor for my 30-year-old central air conditioner.
Love your eletrical break downs, great to learn as we go what things do.
The da Pimp battery desulfater you showed -- I was really interested in that at one time. The guy freely offers the schematics, so I took a look to see what it would take to replicate one. Turns out, all it is, is a capacitive dropper circuit on mains, with a full bridge rectifier, so you end up with current-limited 170V spikes on your battery terminals. The microcontroller, display, switches, all that are just voltmeter fluff, you can just hook up a voltmeter externally and skip all that.
The theory of operation is pretty cool, I think. If the internal resistance of the battery is high, then the voltage it would take to charge it is higher, but the desulfator can rise all the way to 170V if needed. Wherever that voltage is, the battery pulls it down until the dropper capacitor limits the current. Pretty cool, I've had some limited success with it.
I like that the tactile switches are pth, much stronger solder connection, less likely to break when someone hammers on one of the plastic tabs in the faceplate
I'm really happy to see that it looks like you're doing better. You're a star man. We love you.
I actually pulled out one of my lenses from a floor tv just to read that tiny font about the DA PIMP 2
The big resistorp 39ohms is likely for loading the output so the switching supply doesn't blow up when you disconnect the battery. So it is probably only pulling 4W of power
I thought it would be for testing the battery voltage some under load. Hence it's placed next to the ribbon connector so its 'output' can be read by the microcontroller.
Hey there, ol' Uncle Bumble! Another helpful video, I've been thinking about buying one of those Solar chargers for while now. So thanks for the teardown! Also many thanks for the vid about the Ingersoll diaphragm pump, now I know to liberate one of the two old 'faulty' pumps out of the parts cage at work.
Thanks for the new video, it gave my week a highlight after all.
That "dream machine" sounds like an Imperial probe droid.
Sending information of your workshop to the empire.
Most new "smart" battery chargers will refuse to even try charging a totally dead battery. Just connect them to an old "dumb" charger for a while to get a minimum voltage lever in cells then connect to "smart" charger to continue.
Love your work bench... very well organized....
Enjoy every video you make!!! Makes me want to start tearing apart everything, but have a problem of getting them back together. Lol
We have one of these chained into our garbage truck because people keep cranking her and cranking her until the bateria is dead. Some people just can not understand a choke. Give her full off the hop and push it in halfway when she catches. Adjust till she purrs, like an asthmatic kitten.
What happened to the subscriber count. It's blank
Probably so marketing wanketeers will stay away
Everyone left after 5:50
Cause he doesn't want us to know how much he nakes
Ha
@@kwmiked Because sub count is directly proportional to income...
Im sick as hell and this video helped me fall asleep for a nap, thank you
AvEsome walk through, a no bs, bs session! 👍 A Dream Machine Weaver...
Damn, going to miss out on the rulers again. Well, keep them coming! Thanks for the videos, I feel spoiled.
looks like $10 dollar power supply 🐱👤
no, $20, the heatsinks are nice and beefy, like a proper antec or coolermaster
Granted this exact charger is out there under many brand names and may have slightly different workings or features depending on the order from the given retailer (in my case a car products company called Griots). In the case of the Griots branded version that I have had for a few years now, it does have an "exercising" or "desulphating" phase it is supposed to go through, but it takes a little while to settle into it if the settings on the front are in line with what it is supposed to look for (as explained to me, you know a lot more than I do re theis sort of thing). Mine wasn't cheap (part of that is that is says "Griots" on the front), but worth every penny IMO.
Did you know it has a desulfation mode? You can also manually force it to charge by holding down the charge button for a few seconds it will charge anything that way.
I was pleased to see that this is a well built charger. Thanks for the teardown. This charger has worked fine for me. One thing I don't like about it is that it doesn't turn back on after a power outage, making it useless for maintaining a battery over the winter. Another thing is their choice of LED indicator lights, they're bright and at a point on the spectrum that hurts the eyes and makes it hard to see the button labels (minor).
11:47 clarification: DC does produce magnetic flux, it is just constant.
Got my stikderds. 4 pack. One on each toolbox. Thanks Bub. Keep on keepin' on
Nice to see that it's an older design and thus not a loss leader.
I have one of these chargers. I wasnt keen on a fan cooled charger, but it has been one of the best chargers ive bought. Zero issues so far.
2:30, hook up another battery, and have them in parallel, you can trick the brain box to work and also take some of the charges of the good battery to the bad one.
If you get a piece of some of that fancy nichrome wire and stick it across the leads of that ole' battery you'll have the shop warmed up in no time!
@@fascistpedant758 And not with that attitude!
14mm spanner across the forklift battery will warm the place up!
Half-inch Tungsten rod put between the HEAVY AWG wires at 240 volts at 30 amps will ALSO do the trick of warming your shop and provide that nice orangy 3200 degrees Kelvin old-school lighting colour temperature useful for finding bungs kept in holes here and about!
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Gawd these videos make my day. Thanks man!
It is high praise when AvE says somethin's skookum.
I will be purchasing one immediately!! Thanks!!
Depending on the design, it's pretty common for switching power supplies to be more noisy under no load. In fact some of the early AT power supplies back in the day would destroy themselves (well, blow a soldered in fuse) if you switched them on without a load on them.
I was making toast when the bolt meter went off. Got me good
Love them old Schumacher buzz boxes. A must have on the farm. And two of them is better haha. Never know when you need to jump a tractor in a hurry.
Professional mechanic here, I have that exact same unit. Not overly impressed with it, but nice to know they didn't completely cheap out on the internals. But its a pain when dealing with dead batteries, you need to grab a jump pack or throw a regular box on it to get the charger to activate. I specifically bought it I would NOT have to babysit it. One of the guys got a dud and it had to be returned. Once charged it is suppoised to go to float mode, but it will still overcharge a battery. If I was to spend the money again I would buy another powermax. At least for the money you get a 50a charge, auto float, and CLEAN power, straight 14.4v, and no noise.
RTF Manual. If you hold the start button for 3 seconds you can charge a battery with less than 1vdc. You can also supply a constant 14.1vdc by holding the volts button.
You charge a battery at 1/4 of the Ah rating - most automotive batteries are between 50 and a 100Ah - which means you only need between 12 and 25 Amps. Forcing anything more isn’t going to do you battery any good.
@@eliotmansfield Actually 1/10 would be the correct charging rate. 1/3 is the absolute maximum.
Cory thanks for the heads up, I will try that next time. And I also should have stated the power max has up to 50a, it has other charging modes less than that. All automatic, it's a maintainer and the 50a is much nicer when diagnosing a car as it has enough power to keep a vehicle powered up.
@@SinsBird If you're programming the vehicle you need 70/100 amps.
I have that exact charger....it works quite well. I always choose it over one of the old school non-smart chargers
Yeeessss....I picked up 2 of these at a yard sale for a whopping 5 bucks each. Wife wondered why. Well...one can not have too many battery chargers. Good to see they were a worthwhile cheap buy. I guess one day I'll bring in the associated buzz box that's been outside for 3 years now and still works. Been rained on snowed on, Peed on.
Some interesting touches in that box, or should I say 'smart charger', the only thing that gets me about those, and the reason I'm glad I've got one of the old buzz boxes is, many of them will charge if a battery is under 7 volts, they're not sure it's a battery, and just won't work, when someone(she..even if she says it wasn't her) left the lights on..and low and behold ran that battery down to almost nothing, pull out the buzz box, when you have your 'smart charger' right there and handy to grab!
Can't wait till the store restocks on some merch.
The termistor is a NTC so the hotter it gets the lower the resistance! Helps for inrush current when that big cap charges on plugin or startup.
We can't know everything! Keep up the nice vids!
It's not often that something gets taken apart on here and actually gets a thumbs up. Some pretty high praise right there. Of course, I'm not getting rid of my old schumacher buzz box anytime soon! However, I can trust this to not melt a hole in the floor during my absence to get a coke out of the fridge.
I have this same exact charger and had a tractor with a draw somewhere. When I came back to the tractor a week later the voltage was at 1.4 volts and I ran into the issue with the charger showing an error. The way I got around it was I charged the battery some from my truck allowing to get that initial voltage I needed to trick the charger into charging it. It did indeed work.
It's probably the alternator itself, the diodes break down eventually and allow power to drain back through the alternator. When it's started and running they work fine so not always obvious. Good luck
i got m skookum as frig shirt but I forgot to order ruler and stickers gues i will be ordering again. the shirt is VERY NICE!!! thanks a bunch keep up the good work
That WARISTOR/PTC is actually NTC as written, that means it has high resistance at first (to limit DC bus capacitor charging inrush current ) and when current flows, it heats up and resistance drops (also capacitor voltage rises, so the current won't spike up anymore).
I've been runnin' the shit outta the same Solar charger fer almost 4 years now. Hasn't skipped a beat. Good little charger. Thanks fer showin' her innards. 👍
I've ran my battery minder over twice. Left it in pouring rain, snow, ect. Still works perfect!
Thanks for reminding me to buy some rulers
Some solar charger controllers come with an automated, internal desulfating cycle. Our sailboat charger has this. Works like a charm.
Your work area looks nice and organized like mine.
Keep up with the battery and charger videos and I may try to hire you !!
Lol be safe playing with those pixie wranglers !
Love the learning. Thanks.
AvE The thing with the black wires bolted to the radiator is a temperature sensor. The choke is there to lessen the interference. A real professional grade device will be all covered in metal cans to contain the choppy interference inside. This is not a bad charger, but it's not the god sent you make it to be. I charge all my batteries with LED strip power supplies. You can easily modify them to provide current limiting as well. And no smarts present. Just a current limited slightly adjustable power supply.
"... bronze bidet" - love it!
Keep the info coming brother.
I bought a Lidl Parkside high capacity battery Charger/Re-conditioner for £40. I've already saved myself the price of two batteries, that were deemed dead by an RAC call-out engineer.
Professor, another great review.
Good find
This small thing on the secondary side heatsink is temp sensor (like Simon said below), and I guess the TO-220 parts mounted to it, are some double diodes for two way rectification, the voltage is probably controlled by the switching frequency, not by some low voltage regulators or mosfets ;)
That same charger I have in my garage right now branded as Matco. Snap On and Mack Tools also have the exact same one.
When you get the OC failure Mode on that charger you can hold down the power button and plug in the charger to reset it. It happened to 2 different of the same charger. Took me a long time to find that little trick warrentied the first one for that issue before i figured that out.
Inductors are commonly used in switching power supplies. Look up buck converters which efficiently have a lower output voltage than the input voltage. They are also used in boost converters to up the voltage. I have built several of these using TI's Webench web site which will design power supplies to meet your requirements. The varister is used to limit the inrush current to initially charge that capacitor. The coils in the input side are used to filter the high frequency switching noise from exiting the unit. BTW, one feature to look for in Pb battery chargers is a desulfate mode. This works by pulsing the voltage to break up the sulfate crystals and they do work. I regularly ran this on one of my cars and the battery lasted 10 years and when it failed, it was not due to getting weak. Wikipedia has some good information.
Great video AVE
HA. Told someone just the other day that a discharged battery will freeze easily here in the snowy rocky mountains.
'Batteries can't freeze!'
Yea herrr. Uncle Bumblefuck's got my back.
AvE I dont know why I just started dying laughing with you pulled out the AM radio to listen to the noise from the charger. I guess I've done similar things when diagnosing issues with equipment and my friends just didnt understand what was going on
When I used to try and locate noise that would interfere with wander gaurds (pt control) I often used am on radio from shop worked well helping ID noise interference from numerous sources.
Long time listener, first time caller. Im guessing your porklift is a 36v. I have left the old steel tub battery in for counter weight and used 6 deep cycle golf cart batterys in a fabricobbled tray on the counterweight. It wont last as long but works great in the shop. I did buy an ebay golf cart slow charger to maintain a charge on it. Keep up the great videos. Love it.
Another good show!
No isolation slots in the board between the primary and secondary sides. Keep that in mind every time you grab those clamps.
Imagine, a reduction in surface area of usable panels after snowing, brilliant!
At my cabin, I have a 5w solar panel mounted on a vertical wall under the eave for this very reason. I'm at 2.8Km alt in the Rockies and use the same batteries from Costco. They last us 3-5 years. My potable water jugs freeze solid, but the batteries have always survived. I'll second the notion that older chargers had more chooch. We're in a dark age for 12V battery charging.
Hi AvE. T o regen your battery, Tip out old acid. Fill with 10% solution of Sodium Sulphate (Glaubers Salts) and set to charge. will be slow (maybe several days as the insoluble Lead Sulphate gets converted to soluble Sodium Plumbite - some complex chemistry going on ) but should off-gas freely/bubble when underway. . When all looks good, tip out the Sodium Sulphate (disconnect!) and fill with fresh bayyery acid (SG around 1.230 - 1.250) and set to discharge through a 12Volt bulb (record the wattage). When discharged, note the time and work out the amp/hour figure. compare this to claimed figure - should be close. REtrickle charge. Should be fine - have done many using this method.
Thanks for videos. JJ
I learnt something from the video. DC doesn't give any flux.
Just to add to my comment..
I was a golf cart tech and we made a heated bath tub to hold batteries at 90 degrees. Then charge them with 120 hz and 0 hz chargers. Trogen now makes the Costco interstate batteries because the plant in Mexico failed. Not sure but think too much lead. They were heavy. A trogen will last 10 years if treated right. The interstate was lasting one year.
The reason for the AGM and gel mode are to reduce the off gassing while charging. The gasses form bubbles that have a hard time moving through the gel and cause bare spots on the plates thus killing the battery prematurely.
Holy Cow..How few are going this deep cause it is deep, Would love to know where you
were educated...or is it in another vid..? .....Really well done.
That two 'mosfets' at the end are most likely high power diodes to rectify the secondary side of that transformer, just a side note. By the way, congratulations for breaking the six zeroes barrier, i've been keeping mi stick in a vice since two orders of magnitude less.
The interesting thing about these is because there so electrically quite there absolutely great for programming... particularly automotive programming
There is a difference between gel core and lead acid. Odyssey has reconditioned batteries for sale from improper charging all the time. Optima calls the "adoptima" as well.
I got one of those branded MAC and it's been awesome for fleet maintenance for 3 years. Of course I went in and replaced the cables a couple times but there is a Exercising Phase so the large 10w resistor might be used in that circuitry. I just got the Solar charger/maintainer with 100amp boost, heavy SOB compared the the model you have. That's also probably a temp probe as other people mentioned since the fan cycles based on current rate if you watch it with a current clamp. Also AGM batteries are more resistive to taking a charge so it allows the charger to sustain a longer higher voltage to attempt to recover the Optima that may not want to take a charge but it'll come back.
I got the same one from MAC, I've had it for a few months, best purchase I've made. The ones that are owned by the shop where I work are fucking garbage
Doc Mopar I too have the MAC branded one. I swear by it. I’ve had it save a couple of customers batteries that I let fall a little to low.
I have those batteries in my camper with a solar panel. I have them wired on the hot side of the trailer battery cutoff switch. The only draw is the solar controller unless you turn the cutoff switch on.
These are good. I have one from Mac tools. Matco and Snap on also sell a rebranded one.
Others have noted that the wire pointed out at 16:15 is a temperature sensor on the heat sink. I just wanted to add that putting a choke on a grounding line would be counter productive. The point of the ground line is to offer a low impedance path to ground for the noise. The choke would raise the impedance. So if you see a choke you can be pretty damned sure it's not a ground line.
Also, if something is grounded for noise with 4+ inches of small gauge wire that's no good at all. It should be braid and as short as possible. Otherwise you call it an antenna.
I've got a Bosch PS22 "Pocket Driver" with a fucky issue straight from the factory. I think it's just the way they're made, but haven't seen it before. Maybe you can explain it. It's a clutched driver. It has a variable speed switch as well as a variable speed trigger. Ignoring the switch. When trigger is held anywhere between 1 and 0, it spins the spinney bits until there is too much resistance, then the clutch engages and whatever was being screwed is now being vibrated loudly instead. All is as it should be. Here's where the weirdness starts: if you then retry the same screw but pull the trigger all the way to 1, she goes a little deeper. A good 20% more umph when you turn it all the way up to 1. A dangerous 20% to be sure. That's how you poke the deep bits and ruin your hole for later usage. The clutch engages differently if you're trying to go full speed. what gives?
Following your discussion on Matt's (The Workshop - BMW Crankshaft) latest video I would be keen to learn more about making things come that don't want to come.
I have the next model up from that charger . And it's been the best one out of all the so called smart chargers.
Man I wish I had your brain. I would pay to work for you just for the knowledge.
I don't know why, but the different battery types (flooded, AGM, gel) carry different recommended charge voltages & float charge voltages. Also, these voltages change with temperature & the temp/voltage curves aren't shared across the types.
Hence the need to select battery type & the onboard ambient temperature sensor.
You can grab a computerized hobby charger that has rescue features, although my current charger doesn't have a desulfate option. You have to do that on your own. Also need a power supply. But my charger tops out at 30a & 800W, and also does regenerative discharge up to the same rate if you need it you're powering the charger with a battery.
My battery booster is a regular arc welder, a little metal box with a really beefy diode inside it, a 40A circuit breaker and a wire to the battery terminal. Will jump start the vehicle after 30 seconds, or wait for the breaker to trip thermally and try it then. Not good for the battery, and voltage is whatever tap you select, but it will get a flat battery up to 12V in a very short time.
I went with a battery minder years ago. Still going and has saved me multiple batteries with the built in de-sulphator. I think they are up to about $200 these days.