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Forum Index : Electronics : Quick review - "PowerHouse" charger/10Asupply from Altronics

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zeitfest
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Joined: 31/07/2019
Location: Australia
Posts: 631
Posted: 10:38am 07 Dec 2025
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I wanted a 12v battery charger with some grunt, and a powerful 12 supply
was going to be useful as well so I bought a 'PowerHouse' charger as at
Altronics. There are two models, one charges at 4A and one at 9-10A, I bought the 10A version and it arrived quickly.

It is apparently processor controlled  and give different charging profiles for
standard lead-acid, AGM, cold battery, LiFePhosphate,  and also a mode to act as a 12v/10A power supply.  Plug into the mains, the bespoke LCD display lights up and you can then cycle through the options using the press switch on the front.  There is also a battery charge state report mode which is powered by the battery itself. The AGM mode is an eye-opener, I didn't realise AGM had special requirements, and the cheap chargers often don't have the option.

So far I have charged a 100AH 12V lithium iron-phosphate battery, it was pretty straightforward and charged at a healthy 10 A before tapering off. It runs fairly warm.

The package has the charger, some useful cables, and an instruction booklet.

The instructions are a bit hit-and-miss. One part says to connect the cables to the battery before plugging into the mains (good safety for lead-acid - prevents sparks near the battery) but other parts cite a different order.  But the operation is pretty
intuitive - assuming common sense ! - so it is a minor point.
There are safeguards against reverse polarity and so on which is good.

One of the cables has a useful blade fuse holder built-in. Watch the polarity
of the connectors, it is possible to connect red to black and vice versa - not
a good thing to do... errm, the fuse holder works quite well   .

It is going to be really useful, especially to occasionally keep a car or auxiliary  battery charged, as well as using it as good 12v source.
 
Chopperp

Guru

Joined: 03/01/2018
Location: Australia
Posts: 1107
Posted: 12:56pm 07 Dec 2025
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Is this the one? here
ChopperP
 
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