Battery Charger

Battery Chargers are devices which is used to input electrical energy into another electrical cell, or rechargeable battery. A battery charger will do this by pushing an electric current through it. Various types of rechargeable batteries will require different charge currents, which are supplied from the battery charger, therefore many different kinds of battery chargers are manufactured to supply this need. For example a battery from a motorcycle, will require a different current than a mobile phone battery.

There are many types available from battery charger suppliers for various types of application, some of these can include, Trickle charger which charges slowly, Fast charger which use circuitry for rapid charge, Inductive charger which uses electromagnetic induction and solar chargers which employs solar energy, and are usually portable. Because a charger may be connected to a battery, it may not have filtering of the voltage output, so battery chargers that are equipped with filtering and voltage regulation are known as battery eliminators. Battery chargers are available from battery charger suppliers all across the UK, and most will stock a wide range of units.

There are many different types of chargers and some of these can include:

o    Trickle charger
o    Fast charger
o    Inductive charger
o    Solar charger
o    Pulse charger
o    Intelligent charger

A trickle charger is a device that charges a battery slowly at the self discharge rate, and is the slowest type of battery charger. A battery can be left on a trickle charger indefinitely, and by doing so it keeps the battery topped up but never over-charges it.

A fast charger will make use of controlled circuitry in the batteries being charged to quickly charge the batteries without damage to the cells elements. Some of these types of charger may have a cooling fan to keep the temperature of the cells under control. Some fast chargers can fast charge NiMH batteries even if they do not have controlled circuitry.

Solar chargers use solar energy and they are usually portable. Many portable chargers can only take energy from the sun.

Inductive chargers make use of electromagnetic induction to charge batteries. This is achieved by a charging station sending electromagnetic energy through inductive coupling to an electrical device, which stores the energy in the batteries. This is achieved without the need for metal contacts between the charger and the battery.

Other types of charger include timer based and USB based applications.