Magcharger charging question

[jedi391]

I was recently given a magcharger by a retiring coworker. It looks as if it was used very little. It is probably a decade old but looks brand new. I am kicking around throwing a terralux upgrade into it so I threw it on the charger last night to charge it up. The red charging light went on last night but when I looked at it today the red light was off. It appeared to have charged so I turned it on for a few seconds and then threw it back on the charger. The red light went back on for a couple minutes and then faded off again. Does the red light go off once the light is charged or is tHe fact that it's going out mean the charger is toast??

[snakebite]

thats how mine acts.been in the workvan 15 years now with a 3.5ah nimh stick and a custom hot bulb.
its bulletproof.

[HotWire]

I have 2 old magchargers both with Terralux upgrades and the light is on constantly, charged or not. The funny thing is that if I take MC1 and put it in MC2 charger it won't charge! If I take MC2 and put in MC1 charger it won't charge either. I've got them labled 1 and 2. They work fine. Mine have old nimh battery sticks in both.

[jedi391]

Thanks guys, I charged it over night and let turned it on and walked away. At 1.5 hours it dimmed down so looks like it works. I checked the shoebox the flashlight came in and I noticed there was an extra charger in there so I'll test that tonight. I ordered the 1000 lumen terralux upgrade so next week I'll see how that works.

[jedi391]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I turned it on and walked away and it ran for 1.5 hours before dimming so it looks like it charged. I also looked in the shoe box it came in and there was a second charger in there so I'll test that tonight to see if there's any difference. I'm still curious if the light is supposed to go off when charged.

I'm excited to see how the Terralux upgrade changes things. 1000 lumens sounds pretty good but I wonder how it throws.

[Howecollc]

I'm still curious if the light is supposed to go off when charged.

In my family we have 5 MagChargers which we keep located in various buildings around our farm. None of them turn off the red light when finished charging; the red light is there simply to let you know a connection has been made when you snap the flashlight into the cradle.

The fact that you got 1 1/2 hours runtime certainly indicates that the battery is getting properly charged, but I still wonder if the red light is going out because the charger is losing contact with the light. I had a similar issue once. When I snapped one of my lights into the cradle and rotated it, (I always rotate the light about 1/6 of a turn to ensure good contact between the charging rings of the light and the pins of the cradle) the red light was "flickery" when I was turning the light and went off completely when I stopped moving it. Upon further inspection, one of the charging pins felt like it had a little less spring tension than the other. I pushed each of them in and out to the point of bottoming out about 10 times each and that seemed to equalize things out and I've not had the same problem again; and that was years ago.

[Aronaut]

Hi,

With the old Magchargers the red led is supposed to lite up constantly when charging. The chargercircuit consists of a 1amp 7805 (or LM xx17) voltage regulateur used as current source, with an resitor and a diode, the diode located in the magcharger rings. Its a simple, non-intelligent circuit, giving about 1/10 charge current all the time.
Fully charged = 14 hrs x 1/10 current battery.
If the red led does not lite up or is flickering, the charger makes poor contact with the magcharger, the main weakness of the whole setup. Can be the diode making poor contact with the chargerings, or the copper studs making poor contact with the chargerrings.
Btw If you want to upgrade from 2A nicad to 3,5A NimH, the older model chargers can be fitted with a differend resistor, giving more currrent, charging the 3,5A in 14 hrs.

[fivemega]

Btw If you want to upgrade from 2A nicad to 3,5A NimH, the older model chargers can be fitted with a differend resistor, giving more currrent, charging the 3,5A in 14 hrs.

I think you mean 2Ah and 3.5Ah battery sticks.
Also 1/10 charging of 3.5Ah will be 350mA or 0.35A

[fllight]

Jedi391
how did the teralux work out? I need to order a new battery and was thinking about adding one.