Beware of REDARC CE 10 Battery Equalizer

[Aimass]

I bought a REDARC CE 10 battery equalizer and it worked ok for a little less than a year. It blew both fuses and most of the stuff on the 12 V circuit got fried or blew their respective fuses.

Since the company is in Australia and I live in Canada I decided that it would be too long to wait so I opened up the unit and to my surprise the internal circuitry looks like the project of a 12 year old in the 1980s

It's a comparator based circuit with an LM339 and a few 2n2222 and 2n3906. It's got 6 power transistors that are supposed to manage the 10A promised but the 6 transistors are in parallel and the base of the 6 seem to be driven driven by a single 2n3906. With an average beta of 20 on the power transistors I cannot see how this poor little 3906 can drive these 6 power transistors which would require like half an amp whereas the 3906 can only handle 200ma max!

I have not traced the complete circuit but I don't need to look to hard to see it's inefficient and unreliable. There are no protections or any sort of sophistications. It's like someone had a proof of concept circuit (there are many similar DIY simple comparator equalizer circuits posted on the Internet) and they packaged into a product.

The power transistor board is OK quality but the control board is a cheap single sided circuit board with no mask, and I found a few cold solders.

Right from the start I knew there was something fishy about the installation procedure. There are 3 wires and they have a specific order in which you must connect and disconnect in the exact reverse order or else the unit can be damaged. But it turns out they ask you to place fuses on wires 2 and 3. So what happens if the fuse on wire 2 blows before fuse on wire 3? You guessed it, it probably fries like mine.

Anyway, in my opinion I threw away the $175 CAD I paid for this and I am now thinking of buying a REC-2412-30NG from GSL (another Australian company gsl.com.au) if anyone has used GSL please let me know your experience.

I read some positive posts here about other REDARC products (mainly chargers) but I wouldn't buy another product from them ever.

 

[clivehorridge]

I bought a REDARC CE 10 battery equalizer and it worked ok for a little less than a year. It blew both fuses and most of the stuff on the 12 V circuit got fried or blew their respective fuses.

Since the company is in Australia and I live in Canada I decided that it would be too long to wait so I opened up the unit and to my surprise the internal circuitry looks like the project of a 12 year old in the 1980s

It's a comparator based circuit with an LM339 and a few 2n2222 and 2n3906. It's got 6 power transistors that are supposed to manage the 10A promised but the 6 transistors are in parallel and the base of the 6 seem to be driven driven by a single 2n3906. With an average beta of 20 on the power transistors I cannot see how this poor little 3906 can drive these 6 power transistors which would require like half an amp whereas the 3906 can only handle 200ma max!

I have not traced the complete circuit but I don't need to look to hard to see it's inefficient and unreliable. There are no protections or any sort of sophistications. It's like someone had a proof of concept circuit (there are many similar DIY simple comparator equalizer circuits posted on the Internet) and they packaged into a product.

The power transistor board is OK quality but the control board is a cheap single sided circuit board with no mask, and I found a few cold solders.

Right from the start I knew there was something fishy about the installation procedure. There are 3 wires and they have a specific order in which you must connect and disconnect in the exact reverse order or else the unit can be damaged. But it turns out they ask you to place fuses on wires 2 and 3. So what happens if the fuse on wire 2 blows before fuse on wire 3? You guessed it, it probably fries like mine.

Anyway, in my opinion I threw away the $175 CAD I paid for this and I am now thinking of buying a REC-2412-30NG from GSL (another Australian company gsl.com.au) if anyone has used GSL please let me know your experience.

I read some positive posts here about other REDARC products (mainly chargers) but I wouldn't buy another product from them ever.

It sounds like you'd be better off building your own Aimass, then at least you'd know it was safe and adequate for the job.

Most customers would be like me, knowing nothing whatsoever about what's inside or how it works (or doesn't, as the case may be).

We buy a product, the box looks nice and well made, and it works (until it doesn't and we suffer the consequences).

Good post, us idiots need guidance in these matters

 

[StarCruiser]

Folks seem to like Ctek chargers but I don't know about an equaliser. Ctek do some excellent chargers. Not cheap but they really look after the battery and they offer neat wiring solutions too with battery condition monitors etc.