Battery chargers ?

[flint]

My battery charger is on it's way out, old age and rust have taken their toll.
Ctek seems to be the way to go, just wondering if anyone has any other thoughts.

 

[Ben Stratford]

Just got a ctek 5.0 flint and its very good but not the quickest, which is fine for me.

 

[flint]

Thanks Ben, not in a rush here either .

 

[garygiles1963]

If your looking for a mains battery charger, I have one these
Ring RSC612 12A Smart Battery Charger. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00S8969OG/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Seems to do the job.

G.

 

[Ben Stratford]

If your looking for a mains battery charger, I have one these
Ring RSC612 12A Smart Battery Charger. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00S8969OG/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Seems to do the job.

G.

Looks similar functionality as the ctek there Gary. Got the ctek for £62 off ebay

 

[Richard Turner]

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.co.uk/ulk/itm/332551326561

I got one of these Lidl ones, worked great on a very flat battery, seems to have revived it well.

 

[flint]

Thanks all, I'll have a good look at those.

 

[nick_the_fish]

I've got a CTEK (MXS 7 I think) which is really good. It'll do the leisure battery as well as the main battery. Takes a while to run through the cycle but if you're not in a rush its good.

 

[Towpack]

Bought a smart charger from Aldi which works fine on smaller capacity batteries. I bough a Halfords ‘semi smart’ charger, must be over 10 years ago now, and it’s still going strong.

 

[Trevor]

I have the CTEK MSX10 but there are times I have had to resort to a traditional charger. Smart chargers are ok but if a battery is sitting on its arse they won't detect it to start the charging process. 15 mins with a traditional charger is enough the lift the battery enough to switch chargers. Haven't had to do this often but worth knowing I guess.

 

[StarCruiser]

I have a Ctek. It’s brought batteries up very nicely. Leant it to one of my customers to try and revive his fork lift traction batteries (4x12v batteries) when he was thinking they were needing replacement as they weren’t lasting well or powering at full tilt. His words ‘it’s like a race car now’.
+1 for Trevor’s post on conventional chargers just to get the Ctek to recognise it hasn’t got a lost cause connected to it.
Ctek also do some nice add on connector bits and bobs as well as extension leads and such.

 

[Gr8Yota]

Another CTek fan here. Brought a dead Oddessy back to life but did take over 24hrs to do so. Also revived the dead Panasonic OE.

 

[flint]

Thanks everyone for the thoughts. I think it’ll be a Ctek from Amazon (still got a voucher my sis gave me), price seems as good as any. Thanks also for the raising the dead tip, I’ve got an aa sized charger that’s like that, doesn’t see a completely flat one until it’s got a bit of voltage in it.

 

[Chris]

When trying to raise a battery from the dead (which my CTEK does) you can couple another good battery to it in parallel. So if you only have a lower amperage charger slave another battery with jump leads or whatever to effectively 'fool' the charger. Probably the right method but wrong science. Anyway, it works.

 

[SeaJay]

I have a ctek hard mounted to my 80 and its great. Also if you want your wet cell batteries to last longer, try not to let them get below 12.2v

 

[StarCruiser]

When trying to raise a battery from the dead (which my CTEK does) you can couple another good battery to it in parallel. So if you only have a lower amperage charger slave another battery with jump leads or whatever to effectively 'fool' the charger. Probably the right method but wrong science. Anyway, it works.

I would say there’s nothing wrong with that at all Chris. I suppose the only thought I might add which one would probably do anyway would be to switch the charger off before disconnecting the slave battery, perhaps leaving for a few minutes in case there’s any hydrogen around which I would say was unlikely if only on for a short time. I’ve not had a problem yet and have resurrected a really low Varta for the cursed Smart car without hassle.

 

[TonyP]

Anyone here use a CTEK charger for a motorbike? My Halfords one has just quit on me after 10 odd years.

It seems there are a lot of choices, but the MXS3.8 seems about right? Any recommendations?

Only criteria for me is that I must be able to hard wire it to the bike battery and so have a quick connector. Oh and around £50 is what I think is a reasonable spend

 

[StarCruiser]

Not sure which model mine is but it has a motorbike setting I believe. It will no doubt be the same charger but presumably will do 6v batteries. Are bikes still 6v?

 

[TonyP]

12v for mine.

 

[Chris]

Most go for the Optimate Optimiser for bikes don't they? You can leave the leads connected to the battery like the CTEK and just undo the connector to ride out.