Charger help
 

Hi all,

I have a Heinzmann Nicd 36V 4.4Ah battery and the charger just shorted out from moisture. It has (I think) a 3-pin XLR connector.

Can I replace the charger cheaply with ones on ebay? Time to charge is not really a priority. The old charger was rated 2.2A. I'd rather not shell out $150 plus shipping.

Thanks

Ok, for anone else in a similar situation, I bought a cheap razr charger with XLR 3 pin, for a 36 V battery but rated at 1.5 A. It was ten bucks and it works perfectly, without much of a difference in time to charge.

I bought a spare charger for a Currie EcoRide (24 volt 2amp charger). I was hesitant about it (there is a fairly long thread about it somewhere around here) but got one for around $40 instead of the $150 that the dealer wanted. The XLR connection has three pins but only two were in use on the original one so I wired up the spare the same way and it works fine. In fact, since it's 4 amps, it seems to charge quicker but not so fast that I worry about it.

DO NOT CHARGE NICAD WITH A LEAD ACID CHARGER.....

if the razr was using nicad, and the same number of cells, then ok, but an sla charger is not suitable for Ni cells !

With any luck, it will over-charge and kill the pack in a few cycles, at worst it could cause the pack to explode.

A proper Ni ( nimh or nicad ) charger should detect voltage drop between pulse charge cycles and/or temp rise using a thermistor embeded inside the pack... SLA has none of this and does not really care...

My pack has the controller built in, and it gives an LED battery reading. Does that make any difference? I've been using it all week, and the charger auto-shuts off when the charge is full, but obviously I don't want to blow myself up.

Mine is a lithium battery so I did make sure to get a lithium charger. I'm no expert on chargers (by far) but I would think that you would want to match them up.