£2 Lidl Battery/Alternator LED tester

[Zenarchy]

Just a heads up for anyone who might be interested in one of these:

http://www.lidl.co.uk/uk/home.nsf/pa...Car_Tools.ar10

I've been meaning to get something like this for a while to wire up near the clocks so I can get a quick impression of how the battery is charged and keep an eye on how the charging system/alternator is working while I'm away from home with the bike.

Quickly tested it connected directly to the battery and it seems to work a treat and the LEDs are easy to read as they light up in sequence. Not sure how well it'll work when connected through a relay, but I'm sure I read of someone else on here using one of these on their bike succesfully so fingers crossed! For a couple of quid I figure it's worth a try.

They have some other garage things on sale at the moment too:

http://www.lidl.co.uk/uk/home.nsf/pa...223.index.ar10

As usual, went in there for something that cost £2 and came out with my arms full of allsorts (they have some 5l plastic jerry cans for a fiver that look handy and telescopic magnetic screwdriver that I'm hoping might save me from having to take the bashplate off so often to retrieve things - not to mention all the other stuff I came away with). Not sure about every store but my local store had a lot of other tools and bits and bobs that aren't shown on the specials page but that looked OK quality and quite cheap too.

If you're after the battery tester it's worth getting there quickly though as I went around lunchtime and there was only one left (and I only got that one because I followed some guy around who was umming and arring about whether to buy it until he put it down so I could swipe it ).

Best to check your postcode too as I think the offers sometimes differ from store to store.

[cbrpaddy]

1.95 ?? FFS, I bought one recently in the Ireland stores and it was 5.99 euros. I'm going to have to complain, ripoff.

[Zenarchy]

Looking at the prices on ebay I think that's about the going rate for them Paddy. The 1.95 price is probably because it's a special offer (no doubt whoever bought them all up within the first couple of hours thismorning from our local shop will have them on ebay with a healthy markup soon enough). It could be worse - the bike specific versions of these things like the dynacharge are about £40 I think (though they're probably better made I imagine).

Did you wire yours directly into the bike so it's connected all the time? How's it working out for you?

[cbrpaddy]

Yeah, but if they're in Lidl UK for that they should be approx the same in the Lidl store here, no need for a 200%+ markup.

I'm afraid I never even thought of wiring it up as I'm a complete electrical numpty so I wouldn't even know how to begin. Great idea though, don't suppose there's any chance of a tutorial

[Zenarchy]

I'm a bit of a numpty where electrics are concerned too really, but I was thinking about following the instructions in the wiki here for wiring in a power socket using a relay and a live wire for when the ignition is turned on (so the monitor would only come on when the key is turned).

http://www.xrv.org.uk/articles/artic...nd_lighter.php

I found a couple of posts here were people mention fitting simple switches so that might work too (so it could be wired more simply directly to the battery with just a switch on the live wire).

I'm not sure if either method would interfere with the readings as the resistance of the wire will change if it's cut or things added I'm guessing, but as these monitors aren't very precise to begin with and only give a rough idea within certain ranges with the LEDs perhaps that wouldn't matter.

I've just put some heated grips on and planning to get the tank off sometime this week hopefully to tidy up the wiring so I'll probably give this a go at the same time. If it works out I'll take a few photos of what I've done if it's any help.

[chalky4]

Bought a few bits from Lidl in the past, cheap and cheerful, but if you realsie that and don't expect goldstar quality they are adequate, gonna try to get there today and snap one up, my son has more than enough problems with electrics on his peugeot speedfight 100 to justify the huge expense.

[stageonesimmo]

I've got a dyna charge on my RD07a - I just wired it into the switched positive of the trip meter and all is well - these things dont sense current, just voltage and use tiddly little wires anyway so there's no rocket science involved all you need is a switched positive and an earth for it to work - My dynacharge has been tested with my 'Fluke' multimeter connected to the battery as a comparison and it's spot on (well on the charge/no-charge side, I didnt want to fry my reg/rec to check the over-charge side....)

There's a couple of photos in my gallery of it fitted.

Must admit to being a bit narked that I paid £39.80 + P/P when I could have gotten the same results from Aldi (mind you like already said, my dyna is probably better built, fingers crossed)

[Zenarchy]

Bought a few bits from Lidl in the past, cheap and cheerful, but if you realsie that and don't expect goldstar quality they are adequate, gonna try to get there today and snap one up, my son has more than enough problems with electrics on his peugeot speedfight 100 to justify the huge expense.

Yeah, some of the tools aren't as good as the pro alternatives (but for the price some seem surprisingly good sometimes). For ratchets and sockets and things I've tended to buy the more pricey ones from elsewhere but I bought some pliers (set of 4 including a sturdy wire stripper for not much more than a £5er) and while they look a little rough in places, they seem strong and I figure something like that doesn't really need to be precision engineered (particularly for my lumbering clumsy hands ).

If your son is having problems with his electrics, you might find a proper multimeter more useful. You can usually pick up a digital multimeter for not much more from ebay or in argos and similar places and they'd probably be a bit better as they'll give a more accurate reading and also show ohms and amps which might be helpful diagnosing problems.

These are just a strip of leds that light up between different voltage ranges so aren't particularly accurate (though that's handy for mounting to the bike so you can see at a glance what's happening).

[Zenarchy]

I've got a dyna charge on my RD07a - I just wired it into the switched positive of the trip meter and all is well - these things dont sense current, just voltage and use tiddly little wires anyway so there's no rocket science involved all you need is a switched positive and an earth for it to work - My dynacharge has been tested with my 'Fluke' multimeter connected to the battery as a comparison and it's spot on (well on the charge/no-charge side, I didnt want to fry my reg/rec to check the over-charge side....)

Did you just wire it straight in without fitting a relay? I'm tempted to do that though fitting a relay might be handy then I can put the heated grips on it too. Going to try to make time today to get the tank off and have a look.

Must admit to being a bit narked that I paid £39.80 + P/P when I could have gotten the same results from Aldi (mind you like already said, my dyna is probably better built, fingers crossed)

They do look like they'd be better made and also look a bit nicer and being more compact will fit a bit better. On the rdo4 there's not a lot of room in the cockpit so it'll not look so tidy when I fit this I think. Plus the dynacharge is probably properly waterproof (think I'll need to squirt silicon sealant over this one in places to make it waterproof - though hopefully it shouldn't get too wet being behind the screen apart from when I hose it down).

[stageonesimmo]

Yeah, mine dyna is just wired into the feed and earth for the trip - I took the cover off it and soldered the wires into the board. I did it that way as I already have a fused ignition controlled positive for the heated grips by adding a spade and fuse to the 'spare' hole in the fuse box, then I have another direct from the batttery (with in-line fuse) that goes up to the relay for the aux lights (now removed as they were tosh), plus, a relay for something with so little current draw is overkill - the current needed to keep the relay contacts closed will be more then the charge indicator draws!

This way works fine as every circuit on the bike is being fed the same voltage thats present at the battery, (and hence will be running at whatever the reg/rec is charging at when running) so any switched live will do the same job, but I wanted to keep things neat which if you look at the pics, I reckon I've managed. If you want to run a relay set-up for something else at the same time then, yeah, do it, but it's not necessary.............