I bought a charger on eBay claiming to be 48v. When it arrived the sticker originally said 36V, it had been crossed out and 48V written in. The model number had also been changed. I wrote to the seller and he said his distributor said the factory had labeled it wrong. I looked it up online and there were 2 models, a 36V and a 38V. So I charged my battery with it. I rode it just now and it doesn't seem to be as powerful as I had been. I was carrying an extra 10-20 pounds, but I never noticed this any other time I brought the shopping home. Could this be caused by an incorrect voltage charger? Could this damage the battery or bike? How can I check the voltage, I don't have that equipment on hand. Any help is welcome.
S.
You need to put the charger on to the battery pack and check with a meter to see what you are charging it to. You may have been taken for a "ride".
A 48 volt system will not work well and may not last if only charged to 36/38 volts. Also a charger needs to be built for the battery type you are charging. Standard flooded batteries charge differently than AGM or Lithium. A "regular" charger will charge anything, they just will not last very long!
Ed
But would it actually make the bike less powerful than before?
Yes! if it is only charging to 38 volts.
after chargers are "produced" they are checked with a volt meter then labeled. It is possible this 36V charger actually tested at around 53V so they sold it as a 48V model. The only way to know for sure is the get a volt meter and test the charger. A low voltage will result in less power, lower speed, and maybe even cause the bike to "sputter" and not run smoothly.
Dave ; Tennessee
XB-600.
Sigh.. ebay.. so much uncertainty over what you're really getting and little recourse if it wasn't right. The truth looks obscure here. You need to have a voltmeter and that will tell you what the charger is really doing. As someone else mentioned, connect up the charger, plug it in, then read the voltage.
For a 48v SLA pack full charge voltage is about 14v per battery or 56v IIRC. Once charged they tend to drop to 13.2v per battery or 52.8v.
Using a 36v charger to charge a 48v pack simply will not work. The pack would be completely undercharged. A 36v pack fully charged is about 39v but on a 4 battery pack that's 9.9 volts per battery. SLA batteries are deeply undercharged at that voltage. The bike would not even "sputter", it would probably not move if that deeply undercharged.
- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki
I would be extremely surprised if a 36 V charger did anything at all. The fully discharged level of SLA batteries is 10.5 volts. At that point, they are in danger of being permanently damaged.
A 36 volt charger would see even a fully discharged 4 battery pack as a fully charged 3 battery pack and would not put any further electrons in.
PLEASE get a voltmeter and check the voltage under charge. You should see 13.1 V/ battery on float, ~14.6 V/ battery at the end of charge, and a pack voltage of 12.8V / battery fully charged +- a tenth or so. Voltmeters these days are cheap (~$4.00 at Harbor Freight), precise (+- .02 volts in the range we're looking at), and indispensable.