Battery Charger

Kenjt

Kenjt

Member
Can someone recommend a good battery charger?


When I bought my A, about a year ago, the seller gave me his battery charger. It is a DieHard 71219. It worked okay for several months. Recently, after attempting to charge the battery (for several hours) the warning light began blinking and the battery was dead. I thought maybe the charger died and bought a new one. The new one does not work at all and I'll be returning it.



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Schumacher makes good chargers. Make sure you get one that will charge a 6v battery, if thats what your A has.
 
Kenjt said:
Can someone recommend a good battery charger?


When I bought my A, about a year ago, the seller gave me his battery charger. It is a DieHard 71219. It worked okay for several months. Recently, after attempting to charge the battery (for several hours) the warning light began blinking and the battery was dead. I thought maybe the charger died and bought a new one. The new one does not work at all and I'll be returning it.



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Your battery probably has a dead cell or two.
 
Hi Gary, It's a brand new battery, only a few weeks old. Car started fine and took a charge from the old charger with no problem. Then the problems (above) began.
 
The ones made before the age of plastic cases were good units and they are relatively easy to repair if they are damaged. This new stuff is not on my want list. I still use an old Tan colored Schauer B6612 from the 60s. I found a new amp meter for it not long ago. Still works like new. The later models have different plastic switches and meter but may still work OK.
 
I have my dad's old metal cased 6/12V charger. Also inherited a large auto shop type charger when I got my Fordor.
 
Kenjt said:
Hi Gary, It's a brand new battery, only a few weeks old. Car started fine and took a charge from the old charger with no problem. Then the problems (above) began.
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if you have a new battery, why are you needing to charge it? If you just want to keep the battery charged while the car is parked, I believe you would be better off with a battery maintainer. I have always had good luck with a Deltrans Battery Tender Jr. https://www.amazon.com/Battery-Tender-022-0196-Volt/dp/B00Y54JI4G/?tag=atomicindus08-20
 
I use a "Battery Saver" made by Granite Digital. It is a charger, maintainer and tester all in one that can be used to charge both 6V and 12V batteries (including Optima batteries).

I like it the best because it has a built in LCD screen which shows me the overall health of the battery......much more information than the basic "idiot lights" which come with other battery chargers/maintainers.

495867


They are kinda pricy, but you can find them on-sale on Amazon or on the other big box store web sites.

Brad in Maryland
 

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I have an HF 6/12 charger/maintainer that does everything the unit pictured above does...I use it on my 2 Optimas 6v and regular car/mower batteries, 12v.
Cost was $26.95 2 years ago and it has never given me any problems.
It might be worth a look.
 
"New" battery chargers frequently include "safety features."

Try to connect it polarity reversed and the charger locks up.

Try to connect to a battery "dead" (0V) and the charger locks up.

Mine is an old Sears from the 1970s. You charge the battery and even if you "peg" the meter it simply trips and re-sets when the obviously thermal overload resets.

I've left it for a day inadvertently overloaded and came back to find it still "click- clickclicking" It seems to have not hurt it any. (That one was a shorted cell.)

Its actually hard to find a charger of any size WITHOUT the safety features. OSHA is a fact of life we're all supposed to live with. AND, in the protection you lose "diagnosis tools" you might otherwise use to determine a fault.

Sometimes I wonder if "that which you encourage" (Idiocy) you get more of?

The world is not hazard free - and can't be made so entirely.

I suspect humanity would be better if it were not. Certainly smarter.

Joe K
 
My story is a little more complicated. The battery in the car now is the second new battery. I had a problem with the first one and thought it might be defective so put in a new one. At first it worked fine. Drove is around for about 20 minutes with no issue. Next time I started the car I again had no problem. I ran it for a while and then started to back our of the garage. The car stoped (thankfully just inside the garage). When I tried to start it, it would not. The lights and horn won't work. The car has a fuse that looks fine. The amp meter has no movement. I put it on a brand new charger for 3 days and the new battery would not take a charge. Before all of this, I had a lot of work done and the car and it had been running fine


Any suggestions on what I should check now will be most welcome.
 
Kenjt said:
My story is a little more complicated. The battery in the car now is the second new battery. I had a problem with the first one and thought it might be defective so put in a new one. At first it worked fine. Drove is around for about 20 minutes with no issue. Next time I started the car I again had no problem. I ran it for a while and then started to back our of the garage. The car stoped (thankfully just inside the garage). When I tried to start it, it would not. The lights and horn won't work. The car has a fuse that looks fine. The amp meter has no movement. I put it on a brand new charger for 3 days and the new battery would not take a charge. Before all of this, I had a lot of work done and the car and it had been running fine


Any suggestions on what I should check now will be most welcome.
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Check first to see if the new battery is "taking a charge." Autozone can do this for free if you can't do it yourself. I expect that is not the problem but eliminates that as a possible source. Come home with a fully charged checked out battery (they do a load test too for gratis.)

Next put the charged battery "in" but don't connect the terminal - yet. Use a voltmeter to see if any amperage is present between the battery connection and the cable to the starter. If there is current flowing with the key off, lights off, brake off, and not pressing the starter button - you have a "parasitic short" which may be depleting the battery.

Causes of a short are varied. You don't say if you have a modern generator (i.e. diode may be bad) or an original "cut-out" (if not original may have a bad diode) or even a bad distributor condenser. You have to "isolate" each leg of the circuit and EVENTUALLY you will find the leg which contains the short.

I've even seen the "needle" of the ammeter pegged and thus short the circuit - the wires are small and created short thus small so it doesn't erupt in blue flame enthusiasm. But it drains your battery.

The circuit diagram is essential to this. This one can be "blown up" for handy printing out. https://sacramentocapitolas.org/2017/10/18/model-a-wiring-diagram/

Joe K
 
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If you have corrosion on battery terminal clamps the battery will not charge and the car will not start. You may have checked the clamps,but the inside should be shlny lead.


John
 
Hello Joe K, I have a feeling there may be a short someplace. The car does have a fuse, that looks okay. I think you're right, there might be some kind of electrical issue since the battery is new. Can you recommend a good voltmeter that I can use to check components?
 
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Could your charger be over charging and running the battery out of water? Most of the 6V batteries have caps that can be removed and check the fluid level and you can test the charge level with an instrument that measures the specific gravity. Can't remember the name of the instrument, but I have one. On sealed batteries you cannot remove the caps to check the fluid levels and that is why so many die early. Still have an analog VOM that I got in '62 when was an Electronic Technician on my way to Iceland for the Navy. The VOM still works good.
 
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