Battery Charger

catsailr

catsailr

Junior Member
Can a person buy a battery charger like we used to have back in the fifties and sixties? The modern chargers all have electronic circuits. You can hook the charger up, come back in a little while, and the charger has turned off for some reason. I like the old chargers.
 
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Look for old-school equipment at swap-meets, flea markets, local online 'for sale' sites, or even ebay?
 
If you attend Hershey or Carlisle you won’t be disappointed. Old fashioned 6 / 12 volt chargers on wheels are plentiful and very reasonable. Wayne
 
I recently purchased a mid 60s Schauer B6612 charger off of flea-pay. It was in pretty good shape and works like a champ. They only do 6 & 12-volt but that's all I needed for my old stuff.
 
I hate to be a downer, but every time I buy an instrument at a meet the thing doesn't work, and it ends up not being worth fixing. In some cases the parts are not even available.
 
Gene F said:
I hate to be a downer, but every time I buy an instrument at a meet the thing doesn't work, and it ends up not being worth fixing. In some cases the parts are not even available.
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I certainly would be wary of buying any used electronic equipment like this no matter where you shop unless owner can guarantee money back, but they won't, because they can always say you screwed it up. People are really stupid with this stuff. They unhook alligator clamps from battery while charger is still plugged in and the two alligator clamps touch each other, throwing sparks. You don't know what kind of damage has been done by previous owner.
Not to mention that these things have miniature capacitors and junk that goes bad after so many years, made even worse by improper storage environments.
 
The older chargers were pretty simple units. A large transformer to step down the AC voltage to what ever voltage was required, 2 diodes to rectify to DC output, a circuit breaker to prevent self destruction, a switch to control it, and an amp meter to register the current output. There is not much to go wrong and most parts can still be sourced for them.

The new ones have LEDs and things with a programmed life span so don't expect the modern stuff to outlast the old stuff. It just ain't going to happen.
 
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