DIY: Car battery charger from a home inverter I happen to have 4 cars, namely a Fiat linea MJD, Swift 1.3 gen 1, HM ambassador Classic and Premier Padmini. With the second lockdown upon us, it is not possible to keep the cars running and hence the batteries in optimal condition. Letting batteries discharge reduces their life as well as their power capacity (due to sulfation)
To counter this in the past, I have has transformer based (not smart) chargers which used to feed a constant current to the battery and hence needed to be looked into every few hours to ensure that you a rent over charging. This particular rudimentary charger of mine also went kaput a few months ago.
Hence I devised this easy contraption that one can add to thein exiting inverter battery circuit to help charge the automotive batteries through the same smart charger that the inverter uses. Inverters have an inbuilt smart charger that optimally charges the battery connected to it, hence essentially, what I did was connect my car battery in parallel to the inverter battery, hence to the invert, it only ‘sees’ 1 slightly discharged battery and charges it just enough to bring it up and then float charges it. This helps as I don’t have to monitor it continuously and hence sort of works as s smart charger with a float charger capability. I’ve used this to charge all my batteries and it has worked very well.
For the Project, you’d need the following:
1. Volt/ Ammeter – I bought it from amazon https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B07...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
2. DPDT toggle switch https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B08...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
3. 5MM wire as per length requirement
4. Alligator clips
5. Bana plus
6. Fuse holder and fuse
7. PVC box to house the components
8. Wire casing for the wires from the inverter battery to the panel
The wiring is pretty simple and I’ve drawn it out for easier understanding.
Wiring Diagram:
Connection to inverter
35AMP Fuse and panel
Internal wiring
Battery connected
Finished product
you can also watch this video if you want to see some more details: |