Jaycar MB-3623

This is my second Jaycar charger after the first one also failed with little use – My jump starter caused my car to have electrical faults after it started it following instructions. The charger too is swollen and smells of a burning electrical odour. I am concerned there may be an electrical fault that could further do damage to vehicles and or cause fire or personal damage

Piece of horse Raddish !! Waste of money and time – Put it on charge from brand new everything was OK . Went to use it couple of days later to start an excavator , had no power in charger Plugged charger in and nothing . Hasn't worked once from brand new and hasn't even been on a set of terminals . Rubbish , absolutely rubbish!!!

Worst ever – You never really know shat the charger is doing, it works intermittently . The charger regularly trips out on E3 and there is nothing in the manual regarding E3. I am an electrician & I would never buy this charger again.

not as it says to be – '' Eventually, it gets on its way and you can see the input voltage, or charge rate (which I suspect is only a display rather than the actual current flow), or the percentage charged (which is nice to see). '' ok how do i see these -- mine just shows battery voltage --- press the display button -- hold the button ,, still only show battery voltage ,,,

Surprisingly good charger – I bought this from Jaycar. At $159 I had to consider carefully before buying as that price was a lot more than I wanted to pay. You can buy jump starters for less, and I toyed with that alternative for a while. The charger has been good and I think it was a good buy. The instruction booklet is clear enough but takes a few re-reads to work… Read more

stuff out, which is weird as charging a battery a simple procedure. The booklet could have been better written. The write up goes into detail about how it changes the charge rate at different points in the charge cycle and reduces the rate as it approaches fully charged, which is good.

So, my first experience was with a car that wouldn’t start. There was juice in the battery but not enough to turn the engine. The charger got it up to 80% charged in about an hour, maybe a little more (at the highest charge rate – 15A) and the car started like it was a fully charged battery. I was quite impressed. I’ve never timed how long it takes to charge a dead flat battery, but for a home operator I think three to four hours is perfectly okay for even the flattest. It will depend on the condition of the battery. I’ve got some that take ages to charge but I suspect they are at the end of their life, and not a reflection on the charger.

When I got the charger I wondered if it was going to be any good. For something that puts out 15A I expected the weight of a heavy transformer. It’s very light. It has a fan inside; perhaps fans are cheaper than using large transformers.

Operation is a bit unusual in my experience. You hook it up to the battery, (they point out to connect +ve first – don’t know why), then plug it in, select the charge current, select the battery type (I thought there was only lead-acid – well blow me down, there are other types and it accommodates them), then set it going. The display bobs around for a while, trying to determine which voltage battery it has to deal with. So, nothing happens while it’s doing that. This must be one of the ‘intelligent’ properties functioning. Eventually, it gets on its way and you can see the input voltage, or charge rate (which I suspect is only a display rather than the actual current flow), or the percentage charged (which is nice to see).

I accidentally hooked the terminals around the wrong way once, and it warned me. It came up with an error code on another occasion and I thought the charger was stuffed, but I looked up the error code which indicated a battery problem, and that ended up to the case. That battery was under warranty. I returned it and got my money back. So, I'm loving this battery charger.