Parallel chargers ?

[pelissima]

Just got a small (3.8A) charger from Lidl for 20euro. It says 'good for up to 120Ah bats', and looks an interesting piece of kit. I actually got it for the house/car.
As my Victron is broken, I left it on my 3x105A bats for 3 hours and little David seemed happy.
I was wondering, adding a second one or even a third, would that mean 2 or three times 3.8A ?

 

[ghostlymoron]

Just got a small (3.8A) charger from Lidl for 20euro. It says 'good for up to 120Ah bats', and looks an interesting piece of kit. I actually got it for the house/car.
As my Victron is broken, I left it on my 3x105A bats for 3 hours and little David seemed happy.
I was wondering, adding a second one or even a third, would that mean 2 or three times 3.8A ?

Can't see why not. I've got a little Lidl charger and it's fine for maintenance but won't replenish charge very quickly. The other snag with it is, if the power is interrupted, it reverts to 'standby' mode and doesn't continue charging from where it was before the power cut but this is only a problem if you want to leave it on throughout the winter for example and have a supply likely to cut off.

 

[lw395]

It would probably mean more current going in to start with if the batteries were quite low, but after a few hours the charge rate usually drops to a fairly low level.
If it is a 'smart' charger', the presence of other chargers will probably cause it to shut down, leaving one charger charging at its normal rate.

 

[pelissima]

It would probably mean more current going in to start with if the batteries were quite low, but after a few hours the charge rate usually drops to a fairly low level.
If it is a 'smart' charger', the presence of other chargers will probably cause it to shut down, leaving one charger charging at its normal rate.

Well, it looks it has some smartness. So the question is exactly your point. Will they work in parallel or the one will withdraw ?

 

[VicS]

Just got a small (3.8A) charger from Lidl for 20euro. It says 'good for up to 120Ah bats', and looks an interesting piece of kit. I actually got it for the house/car.
As my Victron is broken, I left it on my 3x105A bats for 3 hours and little David seemed happy.
I was wondering, adding a second one or even a third, would that mean 2 or three times 3.8A ?

It may well work but rather than spend more money on low cheap low output chargers Id suggest you should be spending a bit more on a decent quality automatic charger with an output large enough to recharge a 300 Ah battery bank in a reasonable time. Id be looking at, off the top of my head, something like 20.... 25 amps or more.

If you do go for 3 Lidl ones consider splitting the bank and charging the 3 batteries separately.

Be aware that if the power is cut or fails these Lidl chargers do have to be manually restarted.