Harbor Freight EarthquakeXT battery charger - 110 to 220V

[chema.rb]

I connected the charger to 240V and it worked... partially. It does not blow up, but it just charge the battery for a couple of seconds and then it shows "battery full" light. Interestingly, the NTC resistor going to the temperature sense line in the battery is missing.

[james_s]

Given the component ratings, I suspect it will already work on 240V, if it really was 120V only they would use a cheaper 200V capacitor for example. Given it's a cheap charger anyway I would probably just plug it in and see what happens. Either it will just work or you'll get a nice spectacular flash & bang. If the latter then just get a 240V charger or engineer new guts for that one.

[mariush]

Wouldn't it be easier to just spend 20-25$ on a  100VA  230v to 115v toroidal transformer ?

Example

18.5 $ (~ 14 UK Pounds)  230v to 2 x 115v AC 100VA transformer : https://www.tme.eu/en/details/tst100w_2x115v/toroidal-transformers/indel/tst100028/
20.5 $ (~ 15 UK pounds ) 230v to 1 x 110v AC 100VA transformer : https://www.tme.eu/en/details/tts100_z230_110v/toroidal-transformers/breve-tufvassons/

[james_s]

That depends, do you want to spend the money then lug around a stepdown transformer that probably weighs more than the charger? Personally that sounds like a sub-optimal solution but it would work for some people.