Recommendations for portable battery charger

geek84

Hi Folks

I'm thinking of buying a reasonably priced reliable portable car battery charger.

Any recommendations?

Thanks

Iceweasel

Lidl or Aldi.

Very similar.

Very good.

Very cheap.

Richard53

I have an Optimate charger bought for motorcycle batteries. It has an intelligent charging regime and can be left connected permanently (i.e. over winter). It charges the battery in stages and then keeps it topped up with a float charge. I have successfully used it for car batteries (and reviving a lawn tractor battery that I thought was dead). Being designed for smaller batteries, it takes a while to charge a low battery to full charge, but it will do it. No good for an emergency boost, but for storage or regular top-up charges it's brilliant.

Inner_Zone

Iceweasel wrote: »

Lidl or Aldi.

Very similar.

Very good.

Very cheap.

+1. Agreed.

Gloomendoom

Iceweasel wrote: »

Lidl or Aldi.

Very similar.

Very good.

Very cheap.

But almost impossible to get hold of outside the couple of weeks they have them on sale every year.

geek84

Thanks Folks.

Any further suggestions greatly appreciated.

forgotmyname

Are all battery chargers not portable? define portable? Do you mean a jump pack?

Avoid all the cheap ones.. The batteries will expire days after the warranty.

I bought mine from Machine Mart 10/11 years ago and it still started a car the other day.

neilmcl

geek84 wrote: »

Thanks Folks.

Any further suggestions greatly appreciated.

CTEK chargers tend to get good reviews, particularly the MXS 5.0.

geek84

Thanks Folks.

Any further suggestions greatly appreciated.

Norman_Castle

Suggest you answer whether you want a charger or a jump pack. Do you know the difference?

Iceweasel

neilmcl wrote: »

CTEK chargers tend to get good reviews, particularly the MXS 5.0.

They are very good and would probably last 3 times as long as the Lidl/Aldi versions which do the same 'smart charger' things.

Only problem is they cost 5 times as much.