"Voltage Booster" for 31M AGM Battery

[RobotTrader]

Hi all,

I stumbled onto to this forum and would like to first of all thank all have purchased our booster unit. To the one who had an issue with our unit our apologies, our units are guaranteed for life and we would have happily replaced it if you had contacted us.


We spend a lot of time researching our products and testing them including many tens of thousands of kilometers in vehicle to ensure they will work as intended. It is easy to copy someone else's idea but without a full understanding of what you are doing it can become a dangerous exercise.

The suggestion that a higher rated diode than 1A needs to be used for this application shows the writer has no real understanding of vehicles charging system.

Now for the serious part, the design of the circuit board above could result in a electrical fire, I would suggest the designer make suitable changes to avoid this. If they can't work out why then they shouldn't be making the unit.

The use of the cheap diode suggested with or without a fuse could also lead to an electrical fire.

Cheers
Leigh

Sounds more like you're suffering business loss and trying to use scare tactics so you can sell us a diode that costs us $80 shipped. Thanks but no thanks

Also you need to address the warranty on your website. There's a difference between 1 year and life time. I assume you would be covering shipping both ways for failures?

 

[jhguth]

Lol, explain the fire hazard

 

[Akkording]

Who is Leigh, first post to the forum? Lolsnow is the maker and seller

 

[Akkording]

[MENTION=153545]LOLSNOW[/MENTION] do you know Leigh

 

[Leigh]

We don't mind a bit of healthy competition and besides it is a pain for us to ship to the US anyway, we only do it as a favour to help out our US allies.

The fire risk is very real, I would not have raised the issue if it wasn't. It does bug me when someone copies an idea or device, does no real testing to see if their design it is fit for purpose and then starts selling them to others. The risk comes about by people copying the idea or design of another without having any real understanding of why the device they are copying has been designed that way or by copying a design that already has a fundamental flaw in it and then not doing any real world testing to see if their design is fit for purpose.

The automotive manufacture has provided a protective device to ensure the safety of the vehicle under various operating conditions and events, replacing the fuse in the car with a common blocking diode as suggested above is sheer stupidity as it negates the protection that was provided by the fuse. A diode is not a fuse and offers no real protection against fault conditions that can occur in the vehicle electrics.

If you believe retaining the fuse provided by the car manufacturer in series with the diode provides the same level protection as afforded by the fuse alone then again you are wrong and anyone with an electronics training or automotive electronics background should be able to work out why.

I have looked at three of the devices for sale in the US and they all appear to have the same flaw, the devices will do as intended that is increase the charge voltage but they also introduce a fire risk into the vehicle.

There is only one other booster device I know that is fit for purpose and that is manufactured by one of my competitors, Piranha electronics.

We have spent considerable time developing and testing our products both in the lab and out in the field and in many different makes and models over the past 11 years to ensure they will perform as intended and don't compromise the vehicles safety. I strongly suggest others do the same before marketing their products or else at the very least have a very good insurance policy.

For those intending to use boost voltages above .5V, if you do not have a very good understanding of lead acid battery charging requirements and practices together with a good automotive electronics knowledge I would strongly advise you keep below a .6V increase. Also from questions we get asked by some of our US customers in regards to information they have been provided by US battery sellers I would suggest you don't take much of the information supplied by some of them as gospel.


Cheers

Leigh

 

[Leigh]

Regarding the warranty issue, the installation instructions you received should have stated a three year warranty period applies. If you do some checking on the various forums in Australia you will find we have never refused a warranty claim on one of our devices regardless of the time frame. If the unit has definitely proven as faulty we do not expect overseas customers to return the unit for testing, as long as you can provide us with proof you have destroyed the faulty unit we will ship a replacement free of charge.

 

[Leigh]

Here is a link to a video one of my competitors made regarding the obvious dangers of using an automotive blocking diode to replace a fuse!

YouTube

We have been developing these units for over 10 years and have done 100000Km's of testing, we know what works and what doesn't. Neither Piranha or I are going to pass on our hard earned knowledge of the unobvious dangerous of using the other adhoc devices that are available, use them at you own risk.

 

[jhguth]

If you believe retaining the fuse provided by the car manufacturer in series with the diode provides the same level protection as afforded by the fuse alone then again you are wrong and anyone with an electronics training or automotive electronics background should be able to work out why.

you're definitely going to need to explain how there is a fire risk with a fused circuit and how your fused diode doesn't have a fire risk, because that doesn't make sense

 

[unsub1]

Is Leigh from HKB? I’m so confused.

 

[RobotTrader]

Here is a link to a video one of my competitors made regarding the obvious dangers of using an automotive blocking diode to replace a fuse!

YouTube

We have been developing these units for over 10 years and have done 100000Km's of testing, we know what works and what doesn't. Neither Piranha or I are going to pass on our hard earned knowledge of the unobvious dangerous of using the other adhoc devices that are available, use them at you own risk.

You just lost all credibility with this post.

Pushing 500 to 1000Amps via a pair of jumper cables into a diode is equivalent of charging a iPhone straight from a nuclear power plant. What's worse was he was about to do the test with the diode reversed which probably didn't work so he cuts the video where he flips it and overloads it with 1000Amps. :biggrin1:

You need to take your 10 years and 62,137 miles of testing attitude elsewhere.

you're definitely going to need to explain how there is a fire risk with a fused circuit and how your fused diode doesn't have a fire risk, because that doesn't make sense

It doesn't. The "fire" could've been avoided by not installing an alternator that Leigh@HKB believes sends 1000amps to the voltage sensing circuit.

 

[RobotTrader]

Regarding the warranty issue, the installation instructions you received should have stated a three year warranty period applies. If you do some checking on the various forums in Australia you will find we have never refused a warranty claim on one of our devices regardless of the time frame. If the unit has definitely proven as faulty we do not expect overseas customers to return the unit for testing, as long as you can provide us with proof you have destroyed the faulty unit we will ship a replacement free of charge.

Good to know there's other faulty ones out there in the wild. Care to elaborate what's cooking your voltage boosters? :lol:

 

[tristero]

Is Leigh from HKB? I’m so confused.

Must be, see: Returns | HKB Electronics
contact email is [email protected]

Leigh must have found this thread from a google search and decided to educate us and [MENTION=151737]mrblah[/MENTION] about this post

I have both the HKB and GM diode. I tested both, and they both work as advertised.

If you want a cheap OEM diode get the GM diode. If you want a badass one, get LOLSNOWS. I don't see a reason to purchase the HKB one anymore. I own one, because it was the only option when I purchased it (or I knew about at the time).

 

[Leigh]

You really are a hard audience. The video has its issues, the point of the video is to show the diode is unlikely to fuse at a safe current. Mr Toyota has in most cases supplied a 7.5A fuse to protect the vehicles wiring and with good reason, to prevent an electrical fire should a fault develop in the circuit. The cheap diode being used will not fuse at 7.5A, it probably about 80 to 100A to fuse it. If the diode doesn't fuse then the wiring does and the vehicles wiring and it goes up in smoke. What the video should have shown is the results of such a diode when installed in a vehicle and how quickly a car goes up in flames when an electrical fire occurs.

 

[Leigh]

Good to know there's other faulty ones out there in the wild. Care to elaborate what's cooking your voltage boosters? :lol:

Any electronic device can go faulty, when make 1000's of units of a product eventually you will get a failure, that is why warranties exit. We can only control the quality of our workmanship, we can't control the quality of parts sourced from other companies.

Our boosters do not cook, would like to see proof of this if you have it?

 

[Leigh]

jhguth,

The fire risk when using a diode and a automotive fuse in series comes about from heat dissipation in the diode. People think I'll just replace the fuse with a diode, bad idea. When most reasonably intelligent people find this is the case they reason I'll put the original fuse in series with the diode, again this can be a bad idea. An automotive fuse rated at 7.5A will not blow for around 10 seconds when subjected to a current of 200% of its rated current. We have found though that auto fuses can be very unreliable, a 7.5A fuse for example may not blow at all at 14A, Chinese ones it may not blow not blow at 30A. This means if a fault develops in the circuit where the current flowing is insufficient to cause the fuse to rupture the diode could be subjected to a continuous current of 30A, allowing for voltage drop in the cabling the diode could be dissipating 300W and it will not be happy. Personally I would change the automotive fuse used on the PCB above to the lowest value available even then I would have my concerns. We tried using other types of fuses but again the results were unpredictable so we ended up developing our own fusing medium. We could then have opted for a low rated fuse and seperate diode but decided due to safety concerns that using fuse and a seperate a diode mounted inside the fuse box was just to risky. Hope this clears it up for you.

We decide long ago as did the other suppliers in Australia it was far safer to integrate a multi level protection strategy inside the actual fuse package at the point of contact with the vehicle buss. Our devices use either fusible links or a combination of fusible links an electronic circuit breakers to ensure the dissipation in the diode never becomes a concern.

As I have written above, we d considerable development and testing to ensure our devices don't comprise the safety features the car manufacturer has built into his vehicle, we would not like to be responsible for loss of someone's property or worse.

 

[mrblah]

Imagine that I'm a 3rd grader here, so please use common language, why is your voltage booster better than:

1. LOLSNOWS

and

2. Better than the GM product

and

3. why is your product worth 80 bucks?

I have all 3 of these products, and they all work as advertise. From your posts, all i can see is that you are trying to quantify the risks of using another product vs yours, but so far those risks haven't materialized. Not saying it won't or couldn't, or can't, other than it hasn't happened.

Also, i seriously can't fathom how you get away with charging 80 dollars for your product. What I received is not worth 10 dollars in material costs... It looks to me a diode, hot glued to a wire, hot glued to a fuse holder wrapped in bubble wrap in a small cardboard envelope.......... Granted you can charge whatever the demand dictates...... Sure it might have been worth 80 dollars when you were the only one selling voltage boosters........

Bring your charges in line with your competition maybe you won't be crying so much.

I"m not a electrical engineer, just a stingy consumer who can't justify spending 80 dollars for your product in its current format.

Yes, we are worse than investors on a episode of shark tank.

 

[jhguth]

jhguth,

The fire risk when using a diode and a automotive fuse in series comes about from heat dissipation in the diode. People think I'll just replace the fuse with a diode, bad idea. When most reasonably intelligent people find this is the case they reason I'll put the original fuse in series with the diode, again this can be a bad idea. An automotive fuse rated at 7.5A will not blow for around 20 seconds when subjected to a current of 200% of its rated current. We have found though that auto fuses can be very unreliable, a 7.5A fuse for example may not blow at all at 14A it may not blow not blow at 30A. This means if a fault develops in the circuit where the current flowing is insufficient to cause the fuse to rupture the diode could be subjected to a continuous current of 30A, allowing for voltage drop in the cabling the diode could be dissipating 300W and it will not be happy. Personally I would change the automotive fuse used on the PCB above to the lowest value available even then I would have my concerns. We tried using other types of fuses but again the results were unpredictable so we ended up developing our own fusing medium. We could then have opted for a low rated fuse and seperate diode but decided due to safety concerns that using fuse and a seperate a diode mounted inside the fuse box was just to risky. Hope this clears it up for you.

We decide long ago as did the other suppliers in Australia it was far safer to integrate a multi level protection strategy inside the actual fuse package at the point of contact with the vehicle buss. Our devices use either fusible links or a combination of fusible links an electronic circuit breakers to ensure the dissipation in the diode never becomes a concern.

As I have written above, we d considerable development and testing to ensure our devices don't comprise the safety features the car manufacturer has built into his vehicle, we would not like to be responsible for loss of someone's property or worse.

The fuse I have in mine, at 200% rated, has a trip time of about 1s. 30A would be less than 1/10th of a second

Now I'm concerned about my HKB fuse, please post the blow-delay curve for your fusible links

 

[tristero]

[MENTION=359577]Leigh[/MENTION] op2:

Imagine that I'm a 3rd grader here, so please use common language, why is your voltage booster better than:

1. LOLSNOWS

and

2. Better than the GM product

and

3. why is your product worth 80 bucks?

 

[RobotTrader]

Here is a link to a video one of my competitors made regarding the obvious dangers of using an automotive blocking diode to replace a fuse!

YouTube

We have been developing these units for over 10 years and have done 100000Km's of testing, we know what works and what doesn't. Neither Piranha or I are going to pass on our hard earned knowledge of the unobvious dangerous of using the other adhoc devices that are available, use them at you own risk.

You really are a hard audience. The video has its issues, the point of the video is to show the diode is unlikely to fuse at a safe current. Mr Toyota has in most cases supplied a 7.5A fuse to protect the vehicles wiring and with good reason, to prevent an electrical fire should a fault develop in the circuit. The cheap diode being used will not fuse at 7.5A, it probably won't fuse at 50A or 100A for that matter, it took hundreds of amps to fuse it. If the diode doesn't fuse then the wiring does and the vehicles wiring and it goes up in smoke. What the video should have shown is the results of such a diode when installed in a vehicle and how quickly a car goes up in flames when an electrical fire occurs.

So you originally link a video to prove a point of the obvious dangers that blanket all voltage boosters (OEM, Ebay, LOLSNOWS, etc) save for your own.

Then admit the video has issues.

But for some reason you still want us to believe that because applying hundreds of amps (really 500A to 1000A) which is enough to melt a screw driver is a valid test case?

If what you said was a true issue then where are all the owners who would be reporting that their GM car (Chevy, GMC, Cadillac, and Holden) was reduced to ashes? And remember USA is a country that held Toyota accountable for something as small as floormats.

How about you admit you had a great run, made some cool cash at a hefty profit margin, and stop fear mongering us.

In the end the GM diode does exactly what yours claims to do at 5% of the cost and backed by what's considered the largest automotive powerhouse in the world.

LOLSNOW's is a unique piece made by a 4Runner owner and only for 4Runner owners so kudos to you trying to squash a small guy.

HKB. All I can say is the one going up in flames is you.

 

[Leigh]

Ok Robot trader, take a step back, cool down. I think I may have missed something here, does the GM fuse people are using
contain both a fuse and a diode or does it only contain a diode? Can you supply the part number of the device members are using?

There is nothing wrong with functionality of LOLSNOW's device if he has addressed the heat load issues, have indicated it is safe to replace a fuse the question is has he taken into account the scenario where you may have a current flow for a long period of time at 10A, only LOLSNOW can answer that question, if he has and your happy with the other design aspects as his is cheaper than ours use it, whatever you do don't use the GM diode unless it has electrical and thermal overload protection built into it!