charger fan stopped. can a house fan temp be used?

[danjpendleton]

hello all.

I have a cellman 3 position charger that has been working flawlessly until today. Normally when i plug the charger into the 110v wall outlet one led is green and one is red. then ill plug it into my ebike battery and the green led will turn red and the fan will turn on....

The led is switching to red still but the fan isnt coming on, so ill have to repair the fan.


My question is whether itd be ok to setup a house fan on high in front of the charger to keep it cool for a few more charges before i can repair it.

Thanks

 

[RLT]

I'm not familiar with that charger, but I'd guess that you risk 'burning it up'.

I sometimes have to use small house fans to supplement the internal fan, but not to replace it.

If desperate, I might try it, making sure to determine how the air flows through the charger normally, and setting up the fan to best mimic that... Most of my various chargers, the fan exhausts through the top, sucking fresh air through slots in the bottom and or sides of the unit. My higher end charger has both intake and exhaust.


If you really need to try it, You might have the best success by zip-tying it to the front of the fan and masking off areas where most air would go past the charger rather than through it, forcing a bit more air through the device, although even then your efficiency will not be great.

Those internal fans don't usually fail suddenly unless there is something else wrong. Most of the time when I have a fan fail, there is plenty of notice, noisy bearings / bushing, surges and stalls etc.

I'd open it up and at least see if something is physically stopping the fan, or a broken connection before trying any expedient methods.

 

[bmurray7]

Most chargers use the same fans as desktop computers. Take the fan out, measure the size, and order another one. Your local computer shop may have the same fan in stock.

 

[danjpendleton]

it worked fine temporarily. Ended up being a piece of rubber that lodged itself in the fins somehow. All set now

 

[electricbandit]

My em3 charger doses the same thing if I have the charger while its plugged in. I have to unplug every thing reset it and then plug everything back in.

 

[dnmun]

the Modiary charger he sells will not balance a lifepo4 pack because it turns off when the battery charges up to the final voltage.

you have to open the charger and jumper over the output mosfet. i posted up how to do this before when i worked on one of those chargers.

the mosfet is under a heat sink clamp on the back end. remove the clamp, bend the mosfet back and forth on the legs until it breaks off then solder a jumper across the source to the drain legs so that the charger does not turn off when i reaches final voltage.

he really should not be selling these chargers as chargers that can be used to charge and balance a lifepo4 pack under a BMS.