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I have a master charger BCA24 for my car it’s a 12 Volt, 2,7amp , I plugged it in to the mains and attached it to my car battery and left it for 24 hours, it did charge the battery as the car started, but the charger was off when I checked it which was surprising, and now when I plug the charger in it no longer works. It has a 10amp fuse which did blow once before, my fault for attaching it incorrectly, but this time it has not blown, the device is supposed to have a 5 amp so not sure what difference this would make if I put in a 10 amp instead. This is a closed unit so not sure what could go wrong with it and if it is not the fuse, what else could it ne and is it fixable. thanks Bubbles
Hi, The charger has a rated output of 2.7A. The 5 amp fuse was to protect the charger in the event of a problem on the output e.g. a s/c or similar. The fuse is designed to blow at almost twice the rated output and presumably the equipment has been designed to withstand the extra current for the short time it takes until the fuse blows By placing a 10 amp fuse in, the charger is now expected to handle almost 4 times the amount of output current before the fuse would blow in the event of a fault condition. Even if it didn’t blow the current being supplied from the output may well have been in excess of what it was designed for but be less than what would is necessary to blow the fuse, i..e. >5.0A <10A. Therefore I suspect that some components failed before the fuse had a chance to protect it. You would have to open the charger to diagnose and test what the problem is. This may be difficult as you would have to do point to point testing and if the components were burnt out it would be difficult to identify them. (I cannot find a service manual or a schematic diagram for the charger online which would make the task easier).
Some slow battery chargers have a button with which you select the type of battery you intend to charge (e.g motorcycle, can or 6V, etc.) If you don’t set this, chances are your charger won’t switch on.
Hi, nope it is a sealed unit with no switch, just a straight 12 volt, I have used it for many years with the correct 5amp fuse but had to fit a 10amp when my local supplier had no 5amps for me, he said it would be okay, I guess he was wrong. I left the charger on for 24 hours and this was obviously too long. We live in a country town and our surges are sometimes quite high and quite frequent so I guess that would have been another challenge for my little charger to deal with. I will know in future to follow instructions a little more diligently, thanks for all the help, what a great site, I found it ogg Gaia Vinces book about the Anthropocine, the best part of the book. regards bubbles
