Electronics gurus: Will an AC->DC treadmill motor controller work as battery charger?
Background...
I picked up a "broken" electric treadmill from freecycle out of curiousity. "It wasn't working properly", they said, "running too slowly/weakly." Mainly I got it for the DC permanent magnet motor inside. Always nice to have little motor/generators for projects...
Well, it looks like what was wrong was one of the motor brushes was sticking in its gummed up "sleeve". It was arcing up a fireworks show because it wasn't making good contact with the commutator. So... fixed! Comm doesn't look horrible. Seems to run nicely again with that brush making good contact.
The thing takes household AC, and the on-board motor controller converts it to 0-80v DC to run the .4 hp rated motor, adjusted via a physical potentiometer/slider.
Anyway, to my question:
Can I use that motor controller as an adjustable voltage battery charger? I suppose I'd have to stick a fat diode between the controller and the battery to keep the current on a 1-way street?
If not, I guess I'll just keep it around as a variable voltage bench power supply. I'm sure I'll find reasons to play with it.
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