Trickle Chargers

[crossy10]

What trickle charger do you use ?

Since buying the Rs, it’s barely been out of the garage, and it’s not likely to be used much if I’m honest anyway.

Been meaning to order a trickle charger for it. It’s not something I’ve had to use before.

What models do you use ? Any recommendations or will any one do ?

Cheers

[Paul]

NOCO and C-Tek seem to be the most popular, although personally I went with a 20 quid no-name one from Amazon...18 months on and it's worked a charm, the car & battery have never let me down.

[misteralz]

I've got a Ctek and the 'comfort connect' thing. Works brilliantly, and can also revive previously utterly dead batteries.

[ballbagbagins]

Ctek here.

Had an AA one but it was very plop.

[Midland Performance & Retro]

NOCO Genius. Used to use CTek and had few complaints, but the NOCO is a definite step up.

[Soopahfly]

Only complaint I have of my Ctek MX-5 is that it won't charge a properly dead battery. It looks for voltage before it will start charging and if it's below it's threshold it can't see the battery.
I had to use an ancient Halfords charger to float it then switch to the Ctek.

Other than that, no complaints here. The recon mode has brought back a few neglected batteries.

Had an optimate that boiled a motorcycle battery dry.

At the moment I'm using the Ctek to keep the motorbikes topped off.

[pptom]

I've got a ctek and an optimate, used them both on cars and bikes, but wouldn't say one was better than the other though I think the optimate gives a bit more information about what it's doing through its lights.
I've always had a niggling doubt about them though, you do hear of fires caused by chargers, so it's pretty rare that I leave them on after they've done the recharge job. I always leave them in clear space on a concrete floor too in the hope that if they do go up, the flames can't spread.

[georgeb]

C-Tek here as well.

All I know is that batteries lasted me around two years (or just after expiry of the warranty!) even when using it as a daily. Now it get used only at weekend, but I throw the C-Tek on every now and then and this battery is heading for five years now. Can't complain at that.

[MiataMark]

I got one from Aldi (or could have been Lidl) works like a C-Teck but much cheaper. As above if the battery is really dead it won't work but I've got a 40 year old Halfords char5ger that gives it an initial boost.

[rattlecan]

I have the same problem with my half inch impact gun, that won’t charge a dead battery either, but given that it’s not designed to or claims to, I never thought it worth mentioning before 😀

[gte86]

Anyone had any experience with the solar trickle chargers?
My brother has a Gt86 and doesn't do many miles so the battery takes a beating. A well documented fault. It's had the bigger battery upgrade but want to try keep it topped up when parked up as an extension lead isn't really an option where he live.
We have a Maypole charge and it works well. If a battery is really flat it will register it as a 6v battery and have a fit.

[Laters]

I have a small solar panel charger sat on the dash of the other halves 106 as it only gets used odd days & sometimes not for months on end, it normally does less than 1000miles a year as most of the time she just takes the family Honda.
I'm usually the one who takes the 106 out for a drive just to give it some use.
She really likes the car & wont sell it but so much of the time she is moving things about that would be a squeeze in the 106 hence taking the honda.
The battery would without much doubt be on the way to struggling to turn the car over before I got it but after sitting it on the dash the battery has been kept useable & haven't had to charge the batter since the solar panel charger was bought.
It was only a fairly cheap one from eBay too.

I do also have a small Chinese pulse charger which gets left on my weekend/summer car for extended periods over the winter or while the car is laid up.
Again another cheap eBay purchase but it does seem to work and has few modes but most of the time its just on maintenance charge & it seems to do its job.
I did consider getting a better one but as the cheap ones work will use them till they don't.

[ChasR]

CTEK. A number of reasons why and I was skeptical about they for years prior to buying one.

I'd also done some testing with a capacitance tester which I'll come back with here.
But now. I best get to work .

[rblote]

I might be a bit of a show of but we have 4 chargers. 3 Ctek ones. We have 2 hardly used jetski's that are always on the Ctek charger. They are a mid range Ctek charger. Nothing special. Just plug and play.
I have one cheap Ctek thing that charges my ride on mower. It lives on the charger because I am to lazy to find out why the mower doesn't charge my battery while I am using it.
I have also a fairly expensive one that I have always with me when we go out with the camper. It has a quick charge thing on it. I can't think of the brand.

[rattlecan]

I’ve got 3 of these, each one will do 4 batteries at a time. The led’s underneath are for each lead. They are off, if nothing is connected to it, go amber when connected, green when charged & flashing green if below 12v. They come with two metre long leads, but you can buy six & ten meters as an add on. I have them dotted around my garage with various length leads attached to the roof trusses, so they drop down where I need them.

[ChasR]

Right, my reply.

I was skeptical of CTEKs. I thought they were just jumped up chargers with clever advertising. That said:

-The quick connectors are very handy, especially on batteries which are innaccessable. That includes

-Triumph Stags with their battery buried in the front, requiring the PAS pump to come out
-Old VW Campers, where if the bonnet stay is removed for Cali Style life, is a pain to get to without a broom stick to prop it up.
-VW Beetle batteries under the seat.
-Many BMWs, well, mainly the E32, E36 & E46s

Yes, you can just remove the bits to get to them. But it is alot simpler to just have a flying lead. Yes, you could make the leads for £2 from Alibaba, but when the proper leads are £10 each, is the hassle really worth it? When I was at the unit, it was very handy to charge up both my M3, the W124 & a Cali/ratty style Splitty!

They do bluetooth options for very lazy charging (i.e it pings your phone to let you know the battery needs a top-up.

Compared to my Halfords automatic charger, the CTEK gave back about 5% more battery life I seemed to notice. You could argue that the battery would become better with more charging, but the battery had been charged off the Halfords charger quite a bit.

It seems people don't like how the CTEKs do not give a voltage reading but I do get why. It seems everyone thinks that if the battery holds 12.7V, it's fine. That's a very common misconception.

Another misconception is that smartchargers can revive dead batteries. They can, but to a point. If the sulphation is permanent for long enough, the rock like stuff will stay like that. The CTEKs can help by shocking the places with pulses of electricity, but that will only remove the lightest of sulphation from what I can tell.

The Recondition modes are good, as they semi-boil the battery to get the battery acid to effectively remix itself.

Examples I hear you ask about it not recovering batteries?

-Battery went in our old Mondeo 2.5T : 700CCA. The CTEK could not get it beyond 460. Now this will start the car fine most of the year. But have one chilly day, and enough short journeys, and it won't start it. This happened with that battery.

-The splitty I mentioned? The battery on that holds 12.7V, what most magazines and journos claim is the right voltage for a healthy battery. The battery is rated at 350CCA. What did the tester show? 200CCA with a "replace battery" warning. This must have been lower as the RECOND function on the CTEK made the battery churn over faster than before, almost like it was new.

Some CTEKs can put charge into a flat flat battery. MXS 7s and above have a supply mode, which can do this.

But if the battery has been flattened that much, it's time the battery was changed pending testing it.

[crossy10]

Forgot I’d posted this thread.

Thanks for all the info guys. I’ll have a look at some of the CTek ones and get one ordered up.

Cheers again.