On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 07:55:52 -0500, Ignoramus7945
wrote:

I have a lot of things, most of which have batteries, and therefore I
have a lot of battery chargers.

My experience with them has been generally negative. The worst are the
so called "smart" chargers.

The problem is that they are often the opposite of "smart". They go
crazy and stop charging for no reason, or worse, drain the batteries.
Additionally, they fail due to things such as cold weather or
whatever, things any decently made item should handle.

The chargers, at least for lead acid batteries, would really be better
off, if they simply tried to maintain 13.3 volts or some such.

My question is, is my experience unique and atypical, or have you also
had bad experience with battery chargers.

Thanks

i
Most simple lead-acid chargers do just that, and only for one battery
voltage. The larger the charger, the more likely it is designed for
one specific application.

The more elaborate they are, the more things that can go wrong to
confuse the controller and trigger protective circuitry.

Smart chargers and particularly smart chargers intended to charge
'smart' batteries have the worst record. If you examine their
state-machine organization, you will see innumerable vectors that
result in incomplete charging functions, or cyclical fault loops, with
little regard for completion of the intended task.

This is getting better, with time, but there is poor emphasis on
battery charging integrity in the development of most new products
that offer rechargeable battery options. It is considered as an
add-on, or a feature that can be handled in firmware, despite the lack
of experience that programmer's may have in the power electronics
field.

As a result, established products can be expected to operate more
reliably, as they benefit from their previous iterations, similar to
other software-dependent applications.

RL