Shiny Enfield; but what of the charger?

[pyoorkate]

Hey folks,

So we collected my mum's Enfield from Wales last weekend; a trip which apart from Nikki's dog being rather sick on me was remarkably incident free (given I've never driven with a trailer before!). It looks incredibly good:



(There's a few photos here...)

It came with a charger, I think - Chloride branded (but unfortunately I didn't get the model number or a photo of it (from the front, I've got one from the back... yeah, I know, I was in a hurry!) - the owner said that it tended not to (automatically) switch off when the batteries were charged - he would just keep an eye on the voltage and then switch it off himself - but I don't think I want to trust my mum to do that...

Nikki mentioned something about measuring various voltages and setting up the charger appropriately; unfortunately I'm 45 miles away from the manual and the charger (and the car) at the moment; my mum is dying to drive it (to it's MOT!) so I wondered if anyone had any advice on how to set up the charger correctly...

I expect Nikki can probably provide more info on the batteries than me; I recall that they said 'Cyclic' on them; but the owner wasn't an Electric car person, and I'm still a bit new and shiny to all this

I 'spect I'll have to go and get more info, but my mum's house is devoid of internet (the best it can get is a modem / 56k anyhow (well, it has an old ISDN line, but it's way to expensive to run)) so yeah, any advice I can grab before I run down there would be handy

[aminorjourney]

Did you photo the batteries at all?

N

[marktime]

I have not seen many but that has got to be the best looking enfield I have seen to date. I reckon you have done well there.

Mark

[ChrisB]

It came with a charger, I think - Chloride branded (but unfortunately I didn't get the model number or a photo of it (from the front, I've got one from the back... yeah, I know, I was in a hurry!) - the owner said that it tended not to (automatically) switch off when the batteries were charged - he would just keep an eye on the voltage and then switch it off himself - but I don't think I want to trust my mum to do that...

Nikki mentioned something about measuring various voltages and setting up the charger appropriately; unfortunately I'm 45 miles away from the manual and the charger (and the car) at the moment; my mum is dying to drive it (to it's MOT!) so I wondered if anyone had any advice on how to set up the charger correctly...

Hi ya , I suspect it will be a chloride spegel charger there was a retro fit timer that chorlide fitted to later models that would shut the charger down after a max of 12hrs but theres a chance it dosnt have the retro timer fitted.
If its not shutting down then almost certainly theres a fault with the spegal side of things which is how it determins how much to charge the batteries.
Theres no real setting up as such, we are talking 70's tech here
I think I've got a circuit diagram kicking about somewhere for the spegal side of things, basically it looks for the sudden rise in battery volts that shows the battery is fully charged and then pulse the pack for a time looking at the voltage sag between the on and off times once the voltage sag gets to a certain point it then switches the charger off.

Its the same charger (or charge board ) fitted to the Bedford CF electric if its a spegel charger.
ChrisB

[EVguru]

The Chloride charger really only has one thing going for it.

You have it already.

A modern on-board charger will make things much more convenient.

The Zivan NG3 is the dumbest 'smart charger' I've ever seen, but it's good value at approx. £400 and is light enough to be picked up in one hand.

[electricvehicles]

Chloride Spegel MK8 in its day was the most advanced charger on the market. Intelligent proportional gassing complete with an independent overide timer. MK10 or MKx as it was known worked exactly the same but used a smaller controller and opposed to the large cell selector top hat as we know them was replaced with a small pcb. Major downfall on the MKX was the overide timer. It was not triggered until battery gassing volts were reached, ie 2.35V per cell. Many a battery has been boiled dry due to this but Chlorides responce at the time was " If a batter fails to reach gassing volts it had it anyway " !!!
There are a few retro fit controllers on the market that fit into the Spegel's. Some are better than others, old story -- you get what you pay for.
If you do need any further info or supplier details let me know and I will e-mail them over to you.
Regards
Dave

[aminorjourney]

Out of interest how much of the charger box is actually full? The bottom of the charger got flooded - but will it be okay?