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My Son’s just bought a welding/grinding helmet with powered ventilation, 2nd hand at a reasonable price, however it doesn’t come with the battery charger. It’s an ESAB mask.
For an original charger they want £160! For a replacement battery it’s £165.
The battery is 7.4v 5200mAh Li-Ion with a simple DC in to charge, it doesn't appear to be anything special.
How can they justify this price? Am I missing something? Is the charger really worth £160? Is there a more reasonable way to safely charge this battery?
No one has to justify any price of anything.
I imagine the "reasonable price" is because spare parts are crazy expensive.
Find the manufacturer spec & Google the heck out of it, you'll find something eventually.
How can they justify this price?
They are profiteering capitalists trying to charge as much as they believe their customers will pay.
Speak to Mark at MTB Batteries https://www.mtbbatteries.co.uk/ a decent bloke who has plenty of contacts
If it's just a normal 5.5x2.1 (or 2.5) plug, you just need to find the charger spec (voltage/current/polarity/whatever) and buy something from amazon/ebay/RSOnline.
I suspect one reason that the original charger is so expensive is that it'll have been checked/tested for use in any environment that a welding mask can be, so lots of extra testing over what you need to use it at home. Plus a 100% upcharge because they can, and ESAB stickers are expensive.
I've found them locally for about half that, but ESAB Design and Development centre is local. So everyone uses them. I suspect postage would be crippling though.
Thanks Timba, we'll try Mark.
Mert, I think the charger will also have a current monitor built in to prevent over charging etc so I'm lothe to just spec on voltage and polarity.
The ESAB charger is wall/socket mounted so it's operating environment can only be the same as the 13 amp socket so I'm struggeling to see what extra testing they'll be doing.
It looks like a pretty generic charger that costs just a few quid. I've got an identical looking charger accross the office from me now that does the same job including over charge protection (different voltage though) and it retails for £9.57.
Mert, I think the charger will also have a current monitor built in to prevent over charging etc so I’m lothe to just spec on voltage and polarity.
That's *usually* built into the battery pack.
And the sockets i've used in factory are usually IP rated and whatever plugs into them is compliant with whatever the local equivalent of PAT is. Not sure the sockets i have in the house have any testing at all when i look at them!
Got to be careful with second hand stuff that comes without its charger, or at least ask the question why it doesn't.
Often can mean it's potentially stolen.
Kayak23 - He got it from a sale of stuff that came from a company that closed down. It came with a lot of spare parts but not the charger. I'm pretty confident it's legit. I can ask him later, but I think he said they had more than one mask to sell but they only had the one charger. Not entirely surprising if they were £160 each and could be shared....
If you want to try a cheapie one out , ill plug it into my mask if you want- i just became the company welder for no extra money and I couldnt give a **** if my mask blows up.
Also, is it the one that needs a filter? These masks are very short in length, much shorter than a normal mask, so you could get a nasty UV burn on your neck if not covered up . And the cable of the supplied OEM charger is very very thin, I cam easily see it being broken i n use in a busy workshop.
The charger has a little red light which goes green when battery is fully charged, havent noticed anything else special about it.
Worth posting on mig-welding.co.uk. I am sure I have seen a couple of mask DIY battery replacements, so somebody might have found an alternate charger already.