"patrick mitchel" wrote in message ...
wrote in message ...
I agree with those that think the problem is due to using a non-sine
wave inverter. I've recently seen low power true sine wave inverters
advertised for a reasonable price, I think it might have been in the
Norther tool catalog. In any case, I suspect the inverter may still
cost more than a new drill as one writer said. If there is a valid use
for the sine wave inverter other than charging the drill, that may be an
option.

Jim.
OMOO wrote:

A friend bought a 19.2 v Sears cordless drill for use on his boat.
He's cruising now in Aust so no 110 VAC wall power. The charger won't
charge the 19.2 VDC battery on either his inverter or his Honda
generator. Sears doesn't have a 12VDC charger so now what.

Any ideas why and how to fix this ? Any possibility of a generic
charger that runs on 12 VDC? I don't know what the 110 VAC charger
puts out - maybe 25 V ??

There's a lot of chargers for radio control/battery powered craft-
typically the aircraft have anywhere from 4 cells on up. andf they want the
darned cells charged fast. Plus they typically use a car battery for the
energy source. Trouble is, the chargers are gonna set you back a lot more
than the drill. If I was stuck with 12 volts as the source and didn't want
to shel out a bunch for the tool, I'd get a 12v drill- for the commonality.
Regards Pat

If the charger fails to charge on the Honda generator (which
definitely puts out a sine wave), then the problem is NOT related to
the non-sine output of the inverter. Either the problem is more
exotic, or the the charger or battery has gone bad. I cruised for
years with a 'modified sinewave' Heart Interface inverter, and I never
had any problem with any appliances, including chargers. The peak
voltage put out by square wave inverters is quite a bit lower than
sine wave peak voltage for the same rms, so the simplest types of
chargers may not develop enough output to charge a battery when used
with the simplest types of inverters (i.e., square wave). However,
most proper shipboard inverters are (like the Heart) at least
'modified sinewave', which put out narrower alternating voltage pulses
(with some dead-time in between) having a peak voltage nearly as great
as the equivalent sine wave.
Paul Mathews