# homemade battery charger?



## Qer (May 7, 2008)

Shanex-2 said:


> after considering makeing a speed controller I sarted to wonder about the other electrical stuff like the battery charger .Has anyone made there own ? Would it be easier to get 10 cheep battery chargers for 12 volt batterys and use them . This would be for 120 volt systems. Or are the commercial ones well worth the money.


What you get with the GOOD chargers is a fast and controlled charging cycle. Since most cheap chargers take a night (or so, at least mine does) to charge 50-80 Ah it might be a bit unconvenient to only be able to use your car every other day (since you probably have a little more Ah than an ordinary starter battery)...

You would probably want to do something similar if you make your own charger, that is you probably want some kind of micro controller based setup. But it's doable. Just don't boil your pack.


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## Shanex-2 (Jun 7, 2008)

thanks for the info, I didn't take that into account . But it makes sense.


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## TheSGC (Nov 15, 2007)

I ordered up eight Schumacher 6 amp chargers, one each for my 12 volt batteries. Then I plan on making a 15-20 amp charger to get my pack charged up to 75-80% really fast, then switch to the individual smart chargers.


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## 1clue (Jul 21, 2008)

Keep in mind I'm a n00b here, I haven't started anything but am trying to learn what I can so I know where to start.

One thing I noticed on a lot of blogs and build sites around the net is that a whole lot of guys start with really good batteries and a stack of 12v chargers and some sort of complicated connector. Then about a year or two later, you see the same guy has a really nice charger either sitting in the corner of the garage, or built right into the car. They also sometimes have a comment about having replaced their whole stack of batteries because the charger ate them up.

If I were building my car and ready to order batteries and a charger, I would get the best charger I could swing. I would also get some sort of battery management system, which would be a circuit to protect each battery individually. Probably I would make it, it seems a common thing to do. Then I would get whatever batteries I could afford, even if they're cheap.

My viewpoint is that even if you spend $30,000 on a great set of batteries, a crappy charger will destroy them in no time flat. On the other hand, if you can't afford good batteries after you bought/built the charger and BMS, then you can rest assured that the batteries will last as long as they can, and that will probably give you enough time to recover some of the money from the charger and BMS. Hopefully by the time the cheap batteries give out, you can afford a set of good ones.


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