wildebus
Forum Member
Schaudt - the makers of the Electroblok EBL units that are so prevalent on German Motorhomes make what they refer to as a 'Booster' but is a B2B (Battery-to-Battery) Charger. They refer to it as a "Booster" in terms of Voltage Boosting as you usually need a greater voltage than the alternator can provide to properly charge many batteries (a B2B also does this as part of its core function).
It can be fitted standalone but is primarily designed to cable up to the EBL99, EBL119, etc and supplement what comes with that unit and also adds Lithium compatibility to the older units.
Hymer fit the Booster to their latest Motorhomes, but I am not sure when they started doing that, or what other Manufacturers who use the Schault units do.
There are a couple of models available - the WA 121525 and the WA121545. The WA 121525 is a 25 Amp unit, however the WA 121545 does upto 70A (the output is dependant on both the Voltage output of the Alternator and the Voltage of the Leisure Battery - from 45A is guaranteed).
I decided I would get one of the Boosters and try it out to see how it compares with other B2Bs I have used such as the Ablemail AMC and the Victron Orion-Tr Smart ....
Connected to the pair of 100Ah Lithiums that were in a fairly low state of charge (under 30%, so needed around 140Ah put back in) and activated the Schaudt Booster. I wanted to be able to monitor what happens when the batteries got to full charge, so I turned the Booster off (removed the D+ signal wire) late evening and reconnected this morning, hence the gap in the charge.
WA121525 Booster on 200Ah LiFePO4 by David, on Flickr
So after a total 6 hours of running, the 25A Booster took the 200Ah (actually 206Ah) bank from 30% to 100%, which is spot-on performance.
A few things of note:
The current output was constant and full-rate from startup until I disconnected the D+ 5 hours later. Now it is a fairly low output at 25A, but I think that shows good output regulation there. My supply was not an Alternator so the input didn't flucuate either so that output flat line could be due to that partly, but when I did a test of other B2Bs in a similar way, I got variation and noise from ones I expected more of, so quality of output was a win here I reckon.
Feeling the unit after 5 hours of constant full-on running, there was no heatup of the casing whatsoever! it was like it hadn't been on (but it definately was
) there are ventilation grills on the casing but no fan, so whatever passive cooling it has would seem to work very well.
Configuration of the WA 121525 unit could not be much simplier - a 3 way slider to select between Gel, AGM or Lithium, a slide switch to say if there is a temp-sensor or not, and a single LED that lights when active (D+ signal present).
From this testing, I would say the WA 121525 is a good bit of quality kit and could be a nice simple upgrade on an existing EBL installation. What is handy about this output size is that is will almost certainly be compatible with the wiring already present on a van fitted with an Electroblok EBL unit. Motorhome Makers are not reknowned for oversizing cabling so going to big B2Bs can present cabling issues in terms of needing to do new cable runs front to back, which can be a right PITA
I have not tried the WA 121545 Booster, but if that works with the same quoted perfomance as its little brother, then that would be a very nice unit as well, but with the caveat of needing to check cabling is up to it and the likelyhood of having to upgrade to use the bigger Booster.
It can be fitted standalone but is primarily designed to cable up to the EBL99, EBL119, etc and supplement what comes with that unit and also adds Lithium compatibility to the older units.
Hymer fit the Booster to their latest Motorhomes, but I am not sure when they started doing that, or what other Manufacturers who use the Schault units do.
There are a couple of models available - the WA 121525 and the WA121545. The WA 121525 is a 25 Amp unit, however the WA 121545 does upto 70A (the output is dependant on both the Voltage output of the Alternator and the Voltage of the Leisure Battery - from 45A is guaranteed).
I decided I would get one of the Boosters and try it out to see how it compares with other B2Bs I have used such as the Ablemail AMC and the Victron Orion-Tr Smart ....
Connected to the pair of 100Ah Lithiums that were in a fairly low state of charge (under 30%, so needed around 140Ah put back in) and activated the Schaudt Booster. I wanted to be able to monitor what happens when the batteries got to full charge, so I turned the Booster off (removed the D+ signal wire) late evening and reconnected this morning, hence the gap in the charge.
WA121525 Booster on 200Ah LiFePO4 by David, on Flickr
So after a total 6 hours of running, the 25A Booster took the 200Ah (actually 206Ah) bank from 30% to 100%, which is spot-on performance.
A few things of note:
The current output was constant and full-rate from startup until I disconnected the D+ 5 hours later. Now it is a fairly low output at 25A, but I think that shows good output regulation there. My supply was not an Alternator so the input didn't flucuate either so that output flat line could be due to that partly, but when I did a test of other B2Bs in a similar way, I got variation and noise from ones I expected more of, so quality of output was a win here I reckon.
Feeling the unit after 5 hours of constant full-on running, there was no heatup of the casing whatsoever! it was like it hadn't been on (but it definately was
) there are ventilation grills on the casing but no fan, so whatever passive cooling it has would seem to work very well.Configuration of the WA 121525 unit could not be much simplier - a 3 way slider to select between Gel, AGM or Lithium, a slide switch to say if there is a temp-sensor or not, and a single LED that lights when active (D+ signal present).
From this testing, I would say the WA 121525 is a good bit of quality kit and could be a nice simple upgrade on an existing EBL installation. What is handy about this output size is that is will almost certainly be compatible with the wiring already present on a van fitted with an Electroblok EBL unit. Motorhome Makers are not reknowned for oversizing cabling so going to big B2Bs can present cabling issues in terms of needing to do new cable runs front to back, which can be a right PITA
I have not tried the WA 121545 Booster, but if that works with the same quoted perfomance as its little brother, then that would be a very nice unit as well, but with the caveat of needing to check cabling is up to it and the likelyhood of having to upgrade to use the bigger Booster.
