Topic

rough luck wrote: wrote:

Handy thread I was just digging around to find a charger with not using the red F that much these days, the silver one is bog standard and in use every day so no problems there a part from the girlfriend coming home tonight an saying the alternator belt snapped on the way, good job I carry spares although it was the coldest an quickest belt I've changed

Anyway to my charger, its a 12v 4A and says on the box only for cars up to 1.2L whats that all about I would have thought it will still do the job but take longer

or am I wrong???

Trouble with basic battery chargers is that they continue to charge at the same rate all the time, and can "cook" and ruin a good battery. The ones like the CTEK or Accumate or Optimate are intelligent and only charge the battery at a low rate until full up, then at a very low trickle and can be left charging the battery "continously" they keep checking it and topping up as required. They cost around £50 for the Accumate or Optimate and £75 for the CTEK - Hope this helps

So if I just leave it on for one day a week it should be ok, the battery has a charge indicator on it so I can see if it is low

More to the point how long roughly would a 4A charger take to charge a VVC battery

I say once a week because my alarm does take quite a lot of power its not standard and transits to my pager with tamper reports and stuff

rough luck wrote: wrote:

So if I just leave it on for one day a week it should be ok, the battery has a charge indicator on it so I can see if it is low

More to the point how long roughly would a 4A charger take to charge a VVC battery

I say once a week because my alarm does take quite a lot of power its not standard and transits to my pager with tamper reports and stuff

The "charge indicator" on the battery are next to useless! the four year old battery on my 2.0 litre Honda Accord would not turn the engine over on Thursday last and the indicator was green (good charge) charged it for 16 hours with my Accumate charger. Cleaned and greased the terminals, put it back on the car and its like new and still holding a good charge (if it had dropped again within two days, its on its way out and needs replacing) i also checked the alternator output (15 volts across the battery terminals) 13 volts without the engine running and drops to 10 volts briefly on starting, all of which are correct.

The length of time taken to charge a battery depends on its capacity (amperage) the Accumate instructions say that a 55 to 75 amp battery should take 21 to 25 hours to fully charge from FLAT and a maximum of 60 hours. it charges at 1.2amps ~ if it is still in the charging phase after the maximum time and has not gone to the conditioning phase, then the battery has had it, won't hold a charge for any length of time and should be renewed.

You should take the battery off the car or disconnect it before charging, because the process can spike the electronics (madmax had this problem last year and it wiped the ECU ~ Russell reprogrammed it for £30)
The CTEK or ACCUMATE chargers safely charge the batteries on the car and can be left on trickling and topping up for ever (you can get a fixed wiring kit to avoid using the crock clips.

I would discard your fixed rate charger and get a CTEK or Accumate. no i dont have shares in either company, they actually work properley and stop batteries from being "Cooked" and damaged. good luck and let us know how you get on

I ended up leaving it on for about 4 hours an it did the job on the F, although I do think my alarm does use a lot of power, but its the only way I can insure it as requested by the insurance company

On my 4x4 one of the batteries was duff, in my ruff way I stuck a screw driver across the terminals one had a good 18" of sparks ...lol so thats healthy, the other only and 4-6" so ripped it out an had a rumage round the magic shed of bits, didn't have a spare 069 70ah but found an old battery off my merc, moved a few pipes on the 4x4 an all's good, managed to fit it in with a good kicking, so now have an 017 95ah that runs paralell with the other 068 70ah .....started first time this morning

rough luck wrote: wrote:

I ended up leaving it on for about 4 hours an it did the job on the F, although I do think my alarm does use a lot of power, but its the only way I can insure it as requested by the insurance company

On my 4x4 one of the batteries was duff, in my ruff way I stuck a screw driver across the terminals one had a good 18" of sparks ...lol so thats healthy, the other only and 4-6" so ripped it out an had a rumage round the magic shed of bits, didn't have a spare 069 70ah but found an old battery off my merc, moved a few pipes on the 4x4 an all's good, managed to fit it in with a good kicking, so now have an 017 95ah that runs paralell with the other 068 70ah .....started first time this morning

You should have been a brain surgeon with those skilled fingers of yours.

Errrrr Nooo fingers had nothing to do with fitting the battery, I did that by standing on the bull bar an jumping on it with the odd kick from a steel toe cap to line it up

Finger are to cold

rough luck wrote: wrote:

Errrrr Nooo fingers had nothing to do with fitting the battery, I did that by standing on the bull bar an jumping on it with the odd kick from a steel toe cap to line it up

Finger are to cold

The Ctek 3600 arrived the other day, yet to try it, xmas lights take presidency on the outside socket

The instructions are mostly clear but don't say if the charger need to be removed from the battery when starting the car or if only the mains needs disconnecting, any ideas?

talkingcars wrote: wrote:

The Ctek 3600 arrived the other day, yet to try it, xmas lights take presidency on the outside socket

The instructions are mostly clear but don't say if the charger need to be removed from the battery when starting the car or if only the mains needs disconnecting, any ideas?

I would disconnect the charger before starting the car. Most chargers will be damaged if you don't.
You can get special starter/chargers(I've got one) that will help start the car.

I had a jump starter but the battery in it didn't last very long.

The reason I'm asking about the ctek is that because it comes with leads that can be perminatly connected to the battery and it only says to disconnect from the power supply, i.e.mains but doesn't say either way about the charger to battery.

I always unplug the leads from the battery, that way the charger is always unconnected. I have always done it that way for the past 40 years and just continued doing it when I bought a Ctek, should read the instructions, maybe one day.............

talkingcars wrote: wrote:

I had a jump starter but the battery in it didn't last very long.

The reason I'm asking about the ctek is that because it comes with leads that can be perminatly connected to the battery and it only says to disconnect from the power supply, i.e.mains but doesn't say either way about the charger to battery.

The starter/charger I have does not have a battery in it.
It has special circuitry within it so that you can use mains power to assist starting the car.

Very handy, but being solely mains powered, not portable.