Promax TV Explorer - new charger prices

It would appear one of my youngsters has relocated the charging unit for my
Promax meter, to a place where I just can't find it. 2 days of manic
searching and every room upside down has not proved fruitful.

I called Promax and they want £80 for a new one!! Yes it's just a power
lead.

I can't find one that either fits, or is the correct voltage, in the myriad
of chargers I've got at home.

Does anyone know of some kind of universal charger that could be used? Slim
chance I know, but I resent paying £80 for a mains charger unless it's
completely unavoidable. Luckily I charged the thing fully a few days ago and
prob have about 2 days left before it runs out of juice completely!

Forgot to add that the Promax code for this charger is AL103



"-GB-Carpy" wrote in message
...
It would appear one of my youngsters has relocated the charging unit for
my Promax meter, to a place where I just can't find it. 2 days of manic
searching and every room upside down has not proved fruitful.

I called Promax and they want £80 for a new one!! Yes it's just a power
lead.

I can't find one that either fits, or is the correct voltage, in the
myriad of chargers I've got at home.

Does anyone know of some kind of universal charger that could be used?
Slim chance I know, but I resent paying £80 for a mains charger unless
it's completely unavoidable. Luckily I charged the thing fully a few days
ago and prob have about 2 days left before it runs out of juice
completely!

In article , -GB-Carpy
writes
It would appear one of my youngsters has relocated the charging unit for my
Promax meter, to a place where I just can't find it. 2 days of manic
searching and every room upside down has not proved fruitful.

I called Promax and they want £80 for a new one!! Yes it's just a power
lead.

Do you still have the car lighter charger lead?

From that you can measure the dims of the power connector and the
polarity.

Power requirement appears to be 12V dc 50W.
--
fred
FIVE TV's superbright logo - not the DOG's, it's ********

"fred" wrote in message ...
In article , -GB-Carpy
writes
It would appear one of my youngsters has relocated the charging unit for
my
Promax meter, to a place where I just can't find it. 2 days of manic
searching and every room upside down has not proved fruitful.

I called Promax and they want £80 for a new one!! Yes it's just a power
lead.

Do you still have the car lighter charger lead?

From that you can measure the dims of the power connector and the
polarity.

Power requirement appears to be 12V dc 50W.
--
fred
FIVE TV's superbright logo - not the DOG's, it's ********

Thanks Fred. I didn't have the car lighter charger when I posted, but after
ransacking the house for the 3rd time, I came across the car charger in the
garage. Problem solved - ish.

What dimensions would I need to take - outside dia and hole diameter? Promax
seem to have gone out of their way to make it completely different to
anything else.

-GB-Carpy wrote:
It would appear one of my youngsters has relocated the charging unit for
my Promax meter, to a place where I just can't find it. 2 days of manic
searching and every room upside down has not proved fruitful.

I called Promax and they want £80 for a new one!! Yes it's just a power
lead.

I can't find one that either fits, or is the correct voltage, in the
myriad of chargers I've got at home.

Does anyone know of some kind of universal charger that could be used?
Slim chance I know, but I resent paying £80 for a mains charger unless
it's completely unavoidable. Luckily I charged the thing fully a few
days ago and prob have about 2 days left before it runs out of juice
completely!

If it just has a NiMh or NiCd battery you can just trickle charge from a
constant current PSU at C/10 (C=capacity in mAhrs, then charge current
is in mA). It would need a direct connection to the battery and may not
be suitable to connect to the unit.

http://www.component-shop.co.uk/html..._control1.html

£6 for variable up to 300mA charge current.

You may have to sort out connectors and calculate how long minimum
charge you need. Go in for a slow charge over night, or a faster
monitored charge or pay upto £40 for a smart multi purpose fast charger.

To replace the supplied 'charger' so you can plug it into the unit you
just need to copy the voltage (same) and current (more or the same) specs.

--
Tony

In article , -GB-Carpy
writes

"fred" wrote in message ...
In article , -GB-Carpy
writes
It would appear one of my youngsters has relocated the charging unit for
my
Promax meter, to a place where I just can't find it. 2 days of manic
searching and every room upside down has not proved fruitful.

I called Promax and they want £80 for a new one!! Yes it's just a power
lead.

Do you still have the car lighter charger lead?

From that you can measure the dims of the power connector and the
polarity.

Power requirement appears to be 12V dc 50W.
--
fred
FIVE TV's superbright logo - not the DOG's, it's ********

Thanks Fred. I didn't have the car lighter charger when I posted, but after
ransacking the house for the 3rd time, I came across the car charger in the
garage. Problem solved - ish.

What dimensions would I need to take - outside dia and hole diameter? Promax
seem to have gone out of their way to make it completely different to
anything else.

Well done for finding that ;-)

It looks like it is one of those circular concentric pin power plugs.
The 2 important dimensions are the diameter of the centre pin (on the
promax) and the outer diameter of the plug barrel (on the lead). From
those you can get a match with various suppliers, they often specify the
plus by the centre pin dia (say 2.1, 2.5 and so on) and then quote the
diameter of the outer barrel in the small print. The barrel length can
vary too but it's usually just 'short' (10mm ish) or long (16mm ish).

All these dims are a lot easier if you have a vernier caliper.

Plug the car 'charger' into the lighter socket and check the voltage and
polarity, I'm guessing the car lead will just pass the car power direct
to the connector so expect 12-14V, I'm also guessing it will be centre
positive but on a 3k instrument you wont be wanting to get that wrong.

On a quick search it looks like the Promax 4 takes up to 51W and the
Promax 3 takes up to 36W, both at 12V.

It also appears to be an inline switch mode supply which is available
from many suppliers, cpc being one of the usual suspects:
http://cpc.farnell.com

This should get you started but pls check the results:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/yep7rm7
or
http://cpc.farnell.com/jsp/search/br...+182848+182871
+216149+182891+182896+5014292+5014294&Ns=PRICE_PLS _002_PRICE1%7c0&locale=en_CC&appliedparametrics=tr ue&getResults=true&No=
0&catalogId=&prevNValues=411+1002145+500001+182801 +182803+182804+209948+182831+216148+182837+182848+ 182871+216149+182891+1
82896&filtersHidden=false&appliedHidden=false&orig inalQueryURL=%2Fjsp%2Fsearch%2Fbrowse.jsp%3FN%3D41 1%2B1002145%2B500001%26N
o%3D0%26getResults%3Dtrue%26appliedparametrics%3Dt rue%26locale%3Den_CC%26catalogId%3D%26prevNValues% 3D411%2B1002145%2B5
00001
--
fred
FIVE TV's superbright logo - not the DOG's, it's ********

On Mar 30, 11:13*am, "-GB-Carpy" wrote:
It would appear one of my youngsters has relocated the charging unit for my
Promax meter, to a place where I just can't find it. 2 days of manic
searching and every room upside down has not proved fruitful.

I called Promax and they want £80 for a new one!! Yes it's just a power
lead.

I can't find one that either fits, or is the correct voltage, in the myriad
of chargers I've got at home.

Does anyone know of some kind of universal charger that could be used? Slim
chance I know, but I resent paying £80 for a mains charger unless it's
completely unavoidable. Luckily I charged the thing fully a few days ago and
prob have about 2 days left before it runs out of juice completely!

My current analyser is the Promax 5. The plug/socket is not the same
as other Promax products. It's slightly larger diameter inside and
out. Years ago I bought one of every size of concentric plug from CPC,
found the correct one, and bought a bagful of those. I can't remember
the sizes but it's one size bigger than the very common one. The
common one actually works but it is a loose fit.The power requirement
isn't critical because there is an internal switched mode charger unit
that takes care of the charge rate etc. Nomimally the supply should
be12VDC, centre pin is innner. You can use any old 12V PSU as long as
it is 4A or better, or just plug into the van's aux power socket. The
PSU that came with mine sits in the van for emergencies but normally I
just keep the meter connected to the van supply all the time. In the
workshop I have a 12V PSU with both size plugs soldered onto the lead,
so it can feed either the Promax or anything that uses the far more
common smaller plug.

Bill

What about using one of these:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/RC89901-Ciga.../dp/B000URDGQS

with your existing 12v lead?

Erm, cannot you ask the guilty parties to say where it is though?
Brian

--
Brian Gaff -
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!
"-GB-Carpy" wrote in message
...
It would appear one of my youngsters has relocated the charging unit for
my Promax meter, to a place where I just can't find it. 2 days of manic
searching and every room upside down has not proved fruitful.

I called Promax and they want £80 for a new one!! Yes it's just a power
lead.

I can't find one that either fits, or is the correct voltage, in the
myriad of chargers I've got at home.

Does anyone know of some kind of universal charger that could be used?
Slim chance I know, but I resent paying £80 for a mains charger unless
it's completely unavoidable. Luckily I charged the thing fully a few days
ago and prob have about 2 days left before it runs out of juice
completely!

"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
...
Erm, cannot you ask the guilty parties to say where it is though?

I don't know about everybody else, but I assumed the guilty party was 2 year
old

tim