The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.

Leonardo da Vinci

I have a 20 Amp Charger traveling across Canada by slow mule (UPS Not so express). While I was waiting, I did a little research about the charger. This is what I found.

I bought a Redodo 24v 100Ah LiFeP04 battery. My new Starlink mounting pole is not finished, yet. I plan to add solar panels to the mount below the Dishy. There are a few more purchases I need first. I need an additional MPPT controller. I may even buy a Victron. I know, trendy, pricey equipment.

Maybe it is worth it. I will let you know next month when I can afford more tech.

Until then, I need a better charger than I have, it only does 24v at 10 amps. It can take days of running my gasoline generator to charge. Supposedly my new charger will do that in five hours. It will save the planet and my wallet.

The charger I ordered is a Litime 29v 20amp charger. It cost me $220 CDN. It was recommended by Redodo. They told me that had no stock for their charger in Canada.

I noticed that I had the same trouble doing the order as I did with my battery order. So I took a look around. I found the Canadian website for LiTime. They were using the same Shopify interface and website. I was offered a familiar 3% Discount. Their batteries looked identical to Redodo Batteries.

I took a close look at the product numbers on the chargers, they were Identical. It was then I realized that Redodo, LItIme and a few other companies were re-branders. That the products came from other manufacturers.

I learned all about this when I was looking for a part for my bandsaw. I learned that most bandsaws were made by very few companies, sold, and rebranded. That Craftsman saw you bought for too much money, you could have bought the same one under a generic brand name for half the price. I found a generic 12″ riser for my bandsaw for half the price.

So next I typed the product number and found the charger on Made-in-China.com. If I were to buy a hundred of them, I could get them for less than $60 apiece.

I also found the same charger on AliExpress for $99 CDN. Then I found another for $25 CDN plus $45 shipping, same charger. I do feel a little ripped off. It’s on me, I should have researched more.  Either way, my charger should arrive in another week, as long as they feed that slow mule (UPS) carrying my parcel on its trek across Canada from Ontario.

One last thing, my battery and the charger order from two similar companies selling identical products, originated in Concord, Ontario, maybe and most likely from the same warehouse.

UPDATE AUG 17:

The charger has arrived, been picked up, hooked and turned on. I even read the instructions.

Hook up clamps to the battery. Check

Plug into power. Check.

Turn on power switch. There is none. The manual is wrong.  The charger came slightly damaged. There was a small chunk of red plastic, that broke off one of the clamps. No packing material inside, just a heavy charger sliding around the box.

The blue light is flashing, which is good. The voltage on the battery is up to 26.6v already, after 20 minutes of charging, I think so far it’s good.

It topped out at 29.1 then stopped charging then dropped to 26.5 a half hour later, no load except a micro voltmeter.

I will write about the rebranding of batteries soon. Do those cases look the same to you?

Yes, I do know Ampere Time and LiTime are the same company. But did you know L time and Redodo sell identical batteries and products? I mean identical, go to the US Redodo website and have a look.

I see two variations of the same cases.

More info about the sizes weights and brand names of the cells used if I can find out in a future post.