Good Automatic/Smart Battery Charger - Car

Alias_Omega

I'm after a battery charger, 12v which will cover all engine sizes. Be it a 125cc motorbike up to a 4.0Ltr Toyota pickup thing.

Ideally it would have a "flat battery" mode where i can charge a fully dead battery unlike some of them sold by halfords etc which require some.

Ideally below £40 too.?

4743hudsonj

Alias_Omega wrote: »

I'm after a battery charger, 12v which will cover all engine sizes. Be it a 125cc motorbike up to a 4.0Ltr Toyota pickup thing.

Ideally it would have a "flat battery" mode where i can charge a fully dead battery unlike some of them sold by halfords etc which require some.

Ideally below £40 too.?

You are asking for an impossible product. For £40 you can maybe stretch to a standard cheap 12A charger if your lucky but it will certainly be crap. For smart charger with that money your looking at more like 4A.

The ampere rating is important in two ways. First the amount of time it requires to charge a battery, 8A will charge twice as fast as 4A if required. Secondly it also has a role in overcoming the initial resistance of the cells when discharged. If batteries are completely flat this resistance will be so high that 12A-16A chargers will be hit and miss as to whether they will work.

You need to decide whether your really need the load/charge cycle charger function or if you just want outright power.

As for brand, Maypole or Ring offer very good products at decent prices, id be looking at these as a benchmark.

Gloomendoom

The best ones I have seen for not a lot of money are the ones sold by Aldi and Lidl.

http://www.aldi.co.uk/uk/html/offers/special_buys3_20978.htm

The problem is that they only stock them occasionally.

Edit: They won't charge a fully dead battery though. There are ways that the charger can be fooled into thinking that the battery is not fully dead by connecting another battery in parallel. I've not tried this though.

forgotmyname

Machine Mart, Clarke range of starter chargers.

But your not going to get anything really decent for £40.

Low Ah smart charger that conditions batteries, Or a mid range higher amperage charger that reduces charge but doesnt condition the battery.

If a batteries totally dead you need a new battery rather than a charger.

They lose capacity/life when they are discharged.

A flat battery can freeze where a fully charged one wont.

Alias_Omega

Ok,

Avoiding the "flat battery" thing, so one day i go outside one winter morning and Mrs AO reports that the car wont start..the starter motor is clicking/central locking does not work etc...Usual winter flat battery.

Would this halfords product be ok? It claims to be all battery sizes?

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_210939_langId_-1_categoryId_255205

Alias

Strider590

Alias_Omega wrote: »

Ok,

Avoiding the "flat battery" thing, so one day i go outside one winter morning and Mrs AO reports that the car wont start..the starter motor is clicking/central locking does not work etc...Usual winter flat battery.

Would this halfords product be ok? It claims to be all battery sizes?

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_210939_langId_-1_categoryId_255205

Alias

Avoid Halfraud's........

Get a Ctek xs3600, i'm told that the Aldi/Lidl charger is the same device on the inside.... But as they're not available at the moment your £40 would be far better spent on that, than the Halfrauds rubbish. Can you really complain at £40 including free delivery?

(Halfrauds used to sell the CTEK for over £50)

I have the XS3600, it's been connected to my kitcars battery for over 6 months, just keeping it topped up.

A battery will fail to start a car once it's voltage dips below 11volts, this charger has brought back my Vectra's battery from just 5v (after the alarm killed it overnight).
BUT it's clever and WILL detect if a battery is knackered, this means that if your battery has had it, it won't even try to charge it.


I guess someone is bound to ask the question about solar chargers, so i'll answer that now....... ABSOLUTE WASTE OF TIME/MONEY.

Nearly_Old

As above - I also use a CTek as do many others on the car forums I belong to. During the winter it is usually connected to my car in the garage but in the bad snow the other year I connected it to my wife's car parked next to the garage for a week to make sure that her battery would be OK.

TrickyWicky

Alias_Omega wrote: »

Ok,

Avoiding the "flat battery" thing, so one day i go outside one winter morning and Mrs AO reports that the car wont start..the starter motor is clicking/central locking does not work etc...Usual winter flat battery.

Would this halfords product be ok? It claims to be all battery sizes?

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_210939_langId_-1_categoryId_255205

Alias

Despite you trashing halfords in your opening post I was about to recommend that one! I have this at home, very good bit of kit IMO. The wires wrap up around the back of it for storage and it supports bikes, leisure, led acid (standard) and gel batteries. I've left batteries hooked up to it for months with no problems. It's also recharged flat batteries for me too. Don't get me wrong, it's not the best charger out there but its a hell of a lot better than some! At least it will detect when the battery is full and stop charging and then trickle charge when it gets slightly low - it maintenance mode.

There are better out there but at the time for the money this was all I could find and to be honest, it's done me proud. The only thing it doesn't have is a fast charge mode like some of them which is a bit of a p!ss€r

Strider590

TrickyWicky wrote: »

Despite you trashing halfords in your opening post I was about to recommend that one! I have this at home, very good bit of kit IMO. The wires wrap up around the back of it for storage and it supports bikes, leisure, led acid (standard) and gel batteries. I've left batteries hooked up to it for months with no problems. It's also recharged flat batteries for me too. Don't get me wrong, it's not the best charger out there but its a hell of a lot better than some! At least it will detect when the battery is full and stop charging and then trickle charge when it gets slightly low - it maintenance mode.

There are better out there but at the time for the money this was all I could find and to be honest, it's done me proud. The only thing it doesn't have is a fast charge mode like some of them which is a bit of a p!ss€r

But it's not the size of a large mobile phone and it's not water proof, the CTEK is

TrickyWicky

True, very true!

fwor

I've used CTEK chargers for several years, and they are very good.

They have renamed their range, so the xs3600 has been replaced by the MXS 3.6 which is very similar. They cope with a big range of battery types and ambient temperatures, and if you go for the higher capacity model MXS 5.0, it also has a reconditioning mode which will attempt to revitalise a neglected battery.

Like many intelligent chargers, they can't always cope with a completely dead battery, but as others have said, there are ways to overcome that.