Battery Charger Repair and Near-Redesign by Dennis Feucht

Consumer battery chargers occasionally need repair. One of the disadvantages of being an engineer is that, upon tracing the circuitry, it is possible to be overcome by a desire to redesign some or all of it. I overcame this urge when I repaired two Schumacher 10 A battery chargers, and found a couple of subtleties in the design worth presenting. The first charger was a Schumacher 612-A-PE 10 A, 6 V or 12 V charger. Very similar to it but somewhat simplified was a 10 A, 12 V SS-51A-PE Ship N Shore charger. They had identical electronic circuitry, as shown below for the Ship N Shore charger.

Schumacher SS-51A-PE 10 A, 12 V Battery Charger Ship 'N Shore

Q7 2N4403 15k ORG

75

R6

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R1 1.00k

15k

MANUAL GRN R5 15k R3 15k

EN

R11 2N4403 Q6

on

R7 820

R4 130k R12 22.1k

R8 820 RED CHARGED BLK

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Q3 Q1 2N4403 2N4401

Q4 2N4403

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Q2 2N4401

R9 15k Q5 2N4401

3R

As

TL431

Board Number: MC218PCB DLF 7MAY08

R10 4.42k

+ 2.5V

To save myself the trouble of reverse engineering the product, I requested the technical information from Schumacher. To their credit, I did receive a wiring diagram, but it did not contain the electronics. I consequently had to trace the circuitry of the single-sided board, and my result is given above. (I do not think a competitor would have any trouble tracing the circuitry either, though I doubt that I am the only customer irked by the manufacturers lack of an open source approach to customer support. Too many of their competitors are no different, however.)
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1 55A, 200V

Full-wave-rectified 18 V peak sine

Teccor S2055W

+VBAT

-VBAT

Both products are based on 60 Hz technology, having large 60 Hz transformers with center-tapped secondary windings for full-wave rectification, as shown. Both use rectifier diodes in button packages, mounted with plastic holders onto a metal panel that snaps into the rear half-shell of the case. Four diodes are used, two per side in parallel. These diodes are somewhat obscure Motorola SR4355 Schottky diodes that might better be replaced by a TO-220 or TO-247 three-lead package of common-cathode Schottky diodes, rated around 40 V and 15 A. The SCR anode is screwed to the metal panel, thereby connecting to the full-wave rectifier output. This pulsating, 120 Hz waveform, vin, will turn off the SCR every cycle. When vin exceeds the battery voltage, VBAT, by a little over a volt, the SCR turns on if its gate is driven. This SCR is not of the sensitive gate type which means that there is a resistance on the semiconductor chip between gate and cathode of around 300 or less. (This parasitic resistance is the basis for one of the circuit subtleties.) The only IC in the design is the familiar TL431 (designated as R), a three-terminal bandgap reference, op amp and open-collector output NPN, as shown in the circuit diagram. Circuit operation is as follows. For VBAT < 15.0 V, the voltage divider formed by R10, R12 will place less than 2.5 V on the input (pin 1) of the TL431, causing its output BJT to be off. Then pin 3 is pulled up to VBAT by R7, cutting off Q3 and Q4. With Q3 off, Q2, an inverting BJT, is also off, and Q1 is driven on by R3. It in turn drives on Q7, which drives the SCR gate, turning it on whenever vin is a little above VBAT. R6 limits gate drive current. When driven on, Q6 turns on somewhat before, and drives Q5 on. It saturates, pulling the input voltage of the TL431 below 2.5 V and forcing the output BJT (at pin 3) off. This ensures that Q3 is off and that the gate drive stays on the entire cycle, or half-cycle of the power line. (Turning an SCR off at high current can be rude.) When VBAT exceeds 15 V, then during the off part of the cycle, the TL431 input exceeds 2.5 V and its output BJT turns on, pulling pin 3 low. However, it does not saturate for, if it did, it would be hard to explain the function of Q4. When the TL431 output decreases in voltage to about a junction drop below 2.5 V, the collector-base junction of Q4 conducts, connecting the TL431 output to its input. The TL431 loop has negative feedback and will then keep its output around 1.8 V. However, before Q4 saturates, it operates in normal mode and supplies current from R4 to the TL431 input. This positive-feedback hysteresis ensures that the TL431 will switch cleanly when the battery voltage is at the borderline voltage. After switching, Q4 then takes on its second function of closing the TL431 loop as a c-b diode. This keeps the Q3, Q4 base voltage at 1.8 V and keeps Q3 from saturating as it drives Q2 on and turns off Q1, thereby turning off Q7 gate drive. The charging has ended. With the TL431 output held at its 1.8 V low state, the CHARGED LED can conduct through the SCR shunt gate-cathode resistance from VBAT. This conduction not only lights the LED, it also applies a small reverse voltage across the SCR gate-cathode input, giving the SCR some margin in remaining off. Without knowing about the SCR shunt resistance, it makes no sense to connect the CHARGED LED circuit to the SCR gate, does it? The above circuit behavior is for the automatic charger mode, with MANUAL switch open. What is automatic about it is that charging turns off when the battery voltage reaches 15 V. If the MANUAL switch is on, it forces Q7 and SCR gate drive to be on all the time, requiring the user to watch the battery voltage. This mode, however, also allows the battery to be overcharged, which can be useful for equalizing the cells.

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Is this charger design worthy of redesign? It is based on 60 Hz and not switching converter technology, which is larger, weighs more, and costs more. The charging algorithm is simple too simple. It is better to have three-state charging, starting with a constant current until the (lead-acid) battery voltage increases to some nearly-charged value. Then switch to constant-voltage charging until the battery current decreases to some low value, afterward followed by a slight increase in voltage to keep the battery floating with a trickle charge. This charger only charges in voltage-source mode, and unregulated at that. With variations in power-line voltage, the charging current will also vary. With high line voltage, it can be excessive for a while. I overcame the urge to install a current-sense circuit and some additional logic, to implement at least twostate charging, but I did not. With 60 Hz technology it is not really worth the trouble; better to start with a switching-converter design or buy a switching-converter charger such as those low-cost 25 A or 30 A units sold by Vector Mfg. Co. (Black & Decker). They too break and are harder to reverse engineer with more circuitry, but are also repairable with adequate documentation the topic of a possible future article. When they work, however (which is most of the time), they work well and are versatile. Schumacher needs to upgrade their charger designs to switchers if they hope to stay in this market for very much longer.

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