Recommend me a battery charger please?

helpimcrap

helpimcrap

helpimcrap

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Ideally something slow charging so I can leave it on charge all day.

Used to use an Optimate trickle charger for my motorbikeas you leave it on for months. I could get one for my car but just seeing if there's anything better?

Needs to be cheap but good. Probably buy something in sale at Halfords or Euro Car Parts.
 
Anything with a three stage charge strategy. CTEK as above are alright, but you're paying a lot more than is necessary.
 
CTEK are the Porsche ones aren't they? ;)

Some of them are scarey prices lol. It's good that they are battery conditioners too however the amount of times I'd need to use it wouldn't be that much. I've had the car 6months and had to charge the battery up once - I try to take it for good runs so it doesn't flatten down but since the brake light switch has broken and I've not had time to sort that's done me no favours.

I was thinking trickle charger to with a cut-out to avoid overcharging and a temperature cut-out.
 
ov_sjo said:
Anything with a three stage charge strategy. CTEK as above are alright, but you're paying a lot more than is necessary.
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The amount of times i see this and then see something cheaper, heavier, different and lass good suggeted. The avantage of CTEK is it's size, quality and reliability. Buy cheap and buy twice as it seems the OP is doing.

Plenty of solid offers on CTEK too so it doesn't need to be expensive either.
 
Thanks for everyone's input. I want something similar to my optimate 4 as even being a motorbike charger I used it to charge cars up. :)

I'm not after a £20 charger but not after a £300 one either. Something sensible. I'll look into CTEK. Still tempted by an Optimate though lol.
 
Housey said:
The amount of times i see this and then see something cheaper, heavier, different and lass good suggeted. The avantage of CTEK is it's size, quality and reliability. Buy cheap and buy twice as it seems the OP is doing.

Plenty of solid offers on CTEK too so it doesn't need to be expensive either.
Click to expand...

Yeah but this time you're seeing it from someone who understands chargers and has designed a few himself (including 128 cell battery conditioners). It's all the same tat, just car forumites get conned into spending CTEK money because they don't know any better. But when you have 50 similarly-uneducated people all singing the same tune, it's easy to get sucked in.

The chip inside a CTEK which controls charging is about $2. It's the same or similar chip as in a £10 charger which offers 'smart' charging. There is no voodoo in battery charging.
 
helpimcrap said:
Thanks for everyone's input. I want something similar to my optimate 4 as even being a motorbike charger I used it to charge cars up. :)

I'm not after a £20 charger but not after a £300 one either. Something sensible. I'll look into CTEK. Still tempted by an Optimate though lol.
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What size car battery are you charging? Your current Optimate 4 will charge up to a 75ah battery. If your battery is smaller than that what's the reason for wanting a different charger?
 
ov_sjo said:
Yeah but this time you're seeing it from someone who understands chargers and has designed a few himself (including 128 cell battery conditioners). It's all the same tat, just car forumites get conned into spending CTEK money because they don't know any better. But when you have 50 similarly-uneducated people all singing the same tune, it's easy to get sucked in.

The chip inside a CTEK which controls charging is about $2. It's the same or similar chip as in a £10 charger which offers 'smart' charging. There is no voodoo in battery charging.
Click to expand...

I dont get conned into anything. I can see size, feel weight. Even if it does the same it's lighter and smaller than cheap crap ones. I also got 50% discount on mine from Amazon. Which cheap one did you buy and how many CTEK's have you disassembled?
 
Homer-Simpson said:
I use a CTEK MXS 5.0, fantastic bit of kit :)
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I have one of these too. I use them on my bikes and never had a problem, but they will also do larger batteries (i.e. cars, caravans etc). One of these will be ideal if you still have a bike as you can have one unit for all.

I have an old optimate which has broken, and I found out the hard way when I came to start my other bike earlier (I have three bikes and this one was the only one which I hadn't fitted the CTEK lead to).. I'll be opting for a CTEK 0.8 as a trickle charger now!
 
CTEK for me too.

Although I hear LIDL have some other brand ones in at the moment which I've heard good things about from people I respect.
 
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