Modification to Universal Battery Charger/Discharger. K7300

Hi,

I purchased the Velleman Universal Battery Charger / Discharger kit ( K7300 ) last year and have been using it very successfully since then.

Could anybody on this forum perhaps suggest a modification that I could make to the circuit in order to be able to charge a 12V 3.4A/H NiCd battery? The kit only supports batteries up to 9.6V.
My required charging current of 340mA falls within the capabilities of the kit, but I need to make provision for the discharge cycle which needs to sense the battery voltage accurately and switch to charge mode automatically once the battery has discharged to 10V.

I believe an additional jumper and resistor of +/- 8K between R17 and R18 should do the trick, but would like to get a second opinion first before attempting the modification. Has anybody out there attempted this yet ?

Cheers

Carl.

I’m sorry, Velleman doesn’t support modification !

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback. I am already aware of Velleman’s viewpoint on modifications to their kits after contacting your technical support department last week.

I was referred to this forum by one of the Velleman R&D engineers. The purpose of my posting was to get the viewpoint of somebody else who had also purchased this kit and had perhaps also felt the need to charge a battery outside the capabilities of the kit.

Perhaps Velleman could review this kit and perform the necessary alterations to include 12V batteries.
The updated kit could then replace the existing K7300. Problem solved?

Regards,

Carl.