Are all car battery chargers pretty much the same?

espresso

britishboy wrote: »

Was connected for about 10 minutes, it just sat there in 'standby' mode, not letting me cycle through the options on it

You are expecting too much too soon if the battery is discharged - would have been better left on overnight.

longwalks1

cheers expresso so it may even need leaving on overnight even for it to get a reading and allow it to switch through the modes?

Id of thought as soon as it was connected and switched on it'd of let me select the right charging mode?

longwalks1

Gents
Mr AA has got it running again, so now I have 2 options:

A) Run it for a few hours with no radio, lights etc on and put a decent charge back into the battery, then either use it as normal as see if it dies again, or trickle charge it tonight and through to tomorrow afternoon

Move it closer to the house (I live in a flat), and trickle charge it now til tomorrow (only worry with this is the charger still might not let me chose what charging mode I want, maybe if the battery still hasnt got enough charge put in it?)

Cheers

mikey72

Just seen this, it was probably too flat initially.

If it's been run for a bit, I'd probably just run it round the block for five minutes, then connect it to the charger straight away, and leave it overnight.
If you don't leave it for too long between turning it off, and connecting the charger, it should start charging. If not I'd suspect a poor battery.

longwalks1

Thanks Mikey
Can I charge the battery in situ on the car? If so, should i disconnect the neg terminal on the battery, or clip the charger on with battery connected to car as normal? Had conflicting opinions from people.............

Thanks again

mikey72

That's one you'll always get a different answer on.


The Lidl one can be connected in situ, it's electronic so you don't need to disconnect the battery.

Same warnings as every other charger though, if it goes wrong, it can damage the car, if you disconnect the battery, you can lose the settings for every piece of electronics in the car.

In 30 years, I've never disconnected the battery though.
And never had a problem.

This is only my opinion, others do say disconnect the battery every time.

Strider590

britishboy wrote: »

Can I charge the battery in situ on the car?

It depends on the charger, it needs to have a charging voltage no higher than about 14v.
I know what your thinking "car battery's are 12V", but in order to charge a battery you must apply a slightly higher voltage than its rated output..... Otherwise current flows out and not in

Typically the voltage across the battery, when the car is running is around 13.8 - 14v. This means that 14v should be perfectly safe to apply to the battery via an external charger without disconnecting the battery terminals.

The CTEK (and apparently the Lidl) charger, comes with a kit to connect a charging socket permanently to your car, the idea being that you don't have to pull out your tool kit to charge the battery.



This thing right here ^^^

longwalks1

Andy how did you get the Lidl one to revive the dead battery and bring it back to life? I connected up yesterday morning, battery in situ, charger on, the 'standby' light came on (red LED) so I guessed all was ok, but when pressing the 'mode' button to cycle through the charging modes, nothing happened? Wouldn't let me pick the mode I wanted.... Any ideas? How did you being your dead battery to life please?

andy2004 wrote: »

http://www.lidl.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/lidl_uk/hs.xsl/index_27894.htm

I bought one of these chargers last year, works a treat, can even bring a dead battery back to life. thanks to the way i use my car short journeys stop and start, my battery has to be recharged pretty much once a month, I replaced my dead battery with a another one, and went the same way i thought originally it wasnt getting enough charge, but a trip to the garage and a voltage test from the alternator at 13.3volts told me otherwise, used the above charger on the dead battery, replaced the new one to charge it, and i just swap them over every other month, and it stills working.
Cold weather we have been having also takes out some of the charge.
This charger can also charge the GEL batteries. I can take a scan of the manual, its in the box, and its currently late so i'll post the pic when i do it tomorrow.

longwalks1

Cheers strider, but my Lidl one doesnt have the charging socket kit, where could I buy the parts to knock one up myself?

Cheers again

Strider590 wrote: »

It depends on the charger, it needs to have a charging voltage no higher than about 14v.
I know what your thinking "car battery's are 12V", but in order to charge a battery you must apply a slightly higher voltage than its rated output..... Otherwise current flows out and not in

Typically the voltage across the battery, when the car is running is around 13.8 - 14v. This means that 14v should be perfectly safe to apply to the battery via an external charger without disconnecting the battery terminals.

The CTEK (and apparently the Lidl) charger, comes with a kit to connect a charging socket permanently to your car, the idea being that you don't have to pull out your tool kit to charge the battery.



This thing right here ^^^

longwalks1

Andy

Scrap post #79 mate, put charger on her today after an hr run yesterday and the chargers now letting me cycle through the modes, I guess the battery was so flat yesterday morning it wasn't registering

Will leave her on charge til tomorrow morning, should this be long enough guys to fully charge her up? Am reading up on possible battery drain issues on a RR forum