Battery charger ?

[aka rotten]

Answer question for an 85 year old who knows nothing bout electric.Is 2 amp enough to light a tester if I touch the probe to positive side of battery charger,other to neg.lead.Reason I ask I get nothing ,yet 12 amp and 50 amp work fine.2 amp seem like it died.Thanks

 

[Rookie2]

prob dead

 

[aka rotten]

prob dead

K,Why would probe work on 12 amp and 55 on same charger?

 

[G_P]

Is it a slide switch to select the charging amps? If so the switch may be dirty/corroded or the wire on the 2 amp setting has broken off the switch.

 

[Rookie2]

K,Why would probe work on 12 amp and 55 on same charger?

2 amp seem like it died.

 

[aka rotten]

Is it a slide switch to select the charging amps? If so the switch may be dirty/corroded or the wire on the 2 amp setting has broken off the switch.

K,2 amp & 12 amp on same switch [flip type ] 2 amp top ,10 bottom,Starting battery 55amp starting& marine on another switch.May have to take apart and blow out mabee dirt as you say.Thanks for help.

 

[Zelatore]

Many modern chargers will show no output if you try to measure across the leads when they are not connected to a load (battery). It's a safety feature to prevent sparks or shorting of the leads. The charger won't turn on unless there is a load attached.

This is also why some of them won't recharge a totally dead battery. If they don't see at least 4 volts on the leads they think they aren't connected and stay turned off.

A simple solution would be to find a battery, measure the voltage on it, then hook up the charger and see if the voltage goes up. This would of course work best if the battery wasn't totally charged already.

 

[justsam]

Is this a single charger that has a 2, 12, and 50 Amp charging rate or are these individual chargers?

I'm with Zelatore, in that many new "Smart" chargers will output nothing unless they see a load with some lower threshold voltage to trigger them. Best way to test here would be to measure charging CURRENT as opposed to seeing if voltage is present.