trickle/conditioning battery chargers -what to buy?

[armalites]

Why go with these so called intelligent/smart type chargers? What is the advantage for you? If you are charging lead acid wet or gel type batteries then these only require simple charging methods. The best and most reliable chargers for lead acid are the simple older transformer, rectifier and amp meter in a box type.

That may well be the case if you are just charging a battery but if you are maintaining a battery for months at a time then one of the intelligent chargers is better. My Ctek have revived batteries that would have been going for scrap.

 

[Jetex]

If you care about running cost, life expectancy of the cell and in particular if you have cells that only get standby or occasional use then an intelligent charger is what you need.

The charging the battery receives from a car alternator would be far harsher than the simple battery charger charging at say 6 amps.

 

[Jetex]

That may well be the case if you are just charging a battery but if you are maintaining a battery for months at a time then one of the intelligent chargers is better.

You mean like you are leaving the charger connected to the battery like a in a float charger?

 

[GW8IZR]

The charging the battery receives from a car alternator would be far harsher than the simple battery charger charging at say 6 amps.

That is not the issue and its as I said in my post , but we are all free to make our choices.

 

[julianf]

I have found that the Aldi type trickle/mainenance chargers are OK, but very low charge rate, Also if the mains electric is interrupted even for a split second the charger does not reset, Ask me how I know, Ruined a nearly new Optima spiral wound battery.

Can you go into more detail on that please? I have one, so im interested in understanding, as i thought they worked on voltage / current, rather than time (apart from the flot regen thing after ten days).

What i mean is, rebooting them would set them back to stage one, but, on a fully charge unit, i would have thought that they would quickly progress through the cycles based on what they were sensing, and end up back in float again?

Ive got a battery on charge with the lidl one at the moment (which i suspect may be made by ctek under some sort of licence - or maybe just a copy, but id think that would be more expensive?) and its on float, so i think i might go and cut the power momentarily and see what happens.

 

[ukracer]

I've read the Lidl/Aldi ones row pretty good job. C-Tek is the other one.

I have a c-tek. Way over priced and its stopped charging. It still shows voltage but no amps goes into the batteries.

The annoying thing is i scrapped 2 batteries before i learnt you can have volts but no amps.

 

[julianf]

...its called "static electricity", the clue being in the name ; )


(sorry!)

 

[Robotstar5]

Another vote for Optimate, never had to replace a bike battery since I started using them in about 1990, the record so far was my XJ900 was still on it's original battery when I sold it at 10 years old

Had one Optimate fail after 15 years so it was immediately replaced with another.

 

[Robotstar5]

That's definitely my opinion, I don't hold with smart chargers...

Because of stuff like:



3 batteries in 8 years is very poor indeed. I'd be less than halfway through my second one.


I know a fair few bikey people, they've all tried to convince me that optimate/other smart chargers are the way to go.

They all have to replace their batteries at least twice as often as I do.

I'd still be on my first one

 

[gordon stephenson]

I had my Lidl/Aldi charger on my cobra in storage, Brand new Optima battery fitted, The car was completely protected with a good quality car cover, Didn't realise the electricity supply must have been interrupted at some time and if this happens the charger does not recommence charging and needs to be reset, Battery went completely flat and refused to be revived by any method, Even tried flashing it a few times with the mig,

 

[julianf]

Ahh, i understand - thank you.

So its not that it overcharged, just that it stopped charging. So no good for a maintenance device unsupervised.