120V Charger for the Barjack 12V Platform

This is the 120V charger for the Barjack Raven cordless polisher, available separately as a replacement or a second unit. It handles both the 2.5Ah and 5Ah packs on the same 12V system.

Two reasons people end up needing one. The first is simple: chargers get left at job sites, run over in a driveway, or dropped off a bench, and unlike a battery they do not wear out gradually, they just stop being where you need them. The second is less obvious and matters more in a busy shop. A single charger is a serial bottleneck. However many batteries you own, only one of them is refilling at a time, so if a charge cycle takes about as long as a run cycle you are capped somewhere near half uptime and buying another battery will not move that number. A second charger will. One in the shop and one in the van is the usual arrangement for anyone running mobile work.

What Makes it Great:

🔌 Charges Both Capacities: Takes the 2.5Ah and the 5Ah on the same unit, so you are not matching a specific charger to a specific pack.

⚡ Removes the Real Bottleneck: A second charger doubles how fast your packs come back, which is the constraint that actually limits a cordless tool over a full day.

🛡️ Correct Charge Profile: Built for these packs specifically, so it communicates with the battery's protection circuit and manages voltage, balancing, and thermal cutoff the way the cells require.

🚐 Worth Having Two: One at the bench and one in the vehicle means a dead pack is never a trip back to the shop.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need another charger or another battery?

Work out which one is actually stopping you. If you run out of power mid-panel and have a charged pack sitting right there, you need another battery. If you run out of power and every pack you own is either dead or waiting in line behind the one on the charger, you need another charger. The second situation is more common than people expect, because batteries are the obvious purchase and the queue behind a single charger is invisible until you count it.

Does it charge both the 2.5Ah and the 5Ah?

Yes. Both packs run on the same 12V platform and use this charger. The 5Ah holds twice the capacity, so expect it to take correspondingly longer to come back to full.

Can I use a generic 12V charger instead?

This is the one place not to improvise. A lithium pack is not simply filled with current until it is full. It needs a charger that reads the pack's protection circuit, tapers current as the cells approach capacity, balances across cells, and stops on a thermal signal. A generic supply that matches on voltage alone can overcharge cells, drive heat into the pack, and in the worst case create a fire risk. The correct charger is cheap next to a damaged battery, and much cheaper than the alternative.

Why won't it charge a battery that has been sitting dead?

Because the pack's own protection circuit has locked it out. Lithium cells are damaged by over-discharge, so the battery management system cuts the pack off below a minimum voltage to protect it. If the pack then sits for months, self-discharge can take it below the threshold the charger will even recognize, and the charger reads it as not present or faulty rather than empty. Sometimes a pack recovers after a few attempts. Often it does not, and that is the protection circuit doing its job rather than failing. Avoid it by storing packs partially charged rather than flat.

Can I charge in a hot van or out in the cold?

Neither extreme is good for the pack. Lithium batteries have a working temperature window for charging that is narrower than the window for using them, and charging outside it causes permanent capacity loss, or in the cold, plating inside the cell that does not reverse. Practically: let a pack that has been baking in a vehicle cool to room temperature before charging, and bring a cold one inside first. Check the manual on the tool page for the specific range.