Help required. Car tottally dead.

maxi gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Quite possibly.

Charge it up. It should be OK.

Grand ... I shall have a read on autoexpress who did a comprisons of battery chargers not long ago. I think the halfords won came in tops spot from memory as the best but the the recommended was a ctek one.

maxi gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

It's a flamin' battery charger... It shoves 14v out through a pair of croc clips... That's all...

I bought one of these the other week -

Theres a big difference in the different types/quality of the chargers on the market. Along with useful features.

Looks very much like the ctek xs3600 a few quid cheaper too. *thumbs up* :)

No harm in getting the right one as I don't plan on buying them every five minutes. So many times I've rushed into buying something and after a little bit of reading found something cheaper and better.

maxi gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

How much are you planning on using it? Once a year? At most? Quality is irrelevant. If you were planning on charging three or four cars a day "Features"? If it turns a flat battery into one that'll start the car, that's sufficient. Anything else is frippery.

have a hunt round the house for an old mains power unit off a printer or similar, a 14 volt one would be ideal, but 15v ok too, strip the wire and identify plus, bobs your auntie, leave it connected overnight.

or just get some jumper leads, put the flat battery on the car, jump start it from the old one and lreave it running or take it for a drive.

battery chargers are a bit redundant for the average driver nowadays.

20 years ago I always had batteries on charge for myself or customers, now hardly ever, the old wheel around booster hasn't been plugged in for years. the jump pack gets used often though, converted to take a fiesta battery rather than the tiny motorcycle battery it came with.

It's probably not even discharged much. Small loads like an interior light can result in a coating building up on the plates which inhibits oomph production (technical term). A short charge cleans it off and bingo! almost all the original chemistry is raring to go.

Ian

In message , Adrian writes

No. Not anymore, they have all sorts of stuff now, safe connect etc.. Some of the better ones even follow the correct charge profile for lead acid batteries (finally)

What voltage is the flat battery showing (if you have a cheapo DMM)? If it's flatter than say 5v then a modern day smart charger may not work until the battery is above a certain voltage. I've got one similar to the link above which is very good, but on the one occasion I tried to charge a totally flat bat I had to hook it to an old conventional charger in order for it to accept some juice and allow the smart charger to take over.

Clint Sharp gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

...for those too thick not to clip the two clips together when the mains is on...

If you're using it once in a blue moon, it's irrelevant. Does a car alternator "follow the correct charge profile" (whatever that is)? No. It just shoves 14v at it.

The OP may be referring to systems such as Ford's Smart Charge, where the ECU profiles the output to the battery. This does appear to prolong battery life, and minimize the risk of a battery going flat.

Totally agree with you regarding the lack of need for any such sophistication in a charger used infrequently. I'm still using one I built

30 years ago from a transformer, rectifier, selector switch and ammeter. It does everything from a six volt motorcycle battery to a 24 volt truck. Just needs a bit of common sense to use...

Chris

Ruling out its use by half the population.

Oh, significantly more than half IMHO.

I worked as an electrical tech in a large factory; we were often asked to repair small items as "homers".

The number of battery chargers that were damaged by reverse polarity was amazing! They had a 50/50 chance of getting it right by luck FFS.

Chris

Surely you only need to leave it connected until it goes bang or turns to a lump of charcoal. Shouldn't take all night.

as long as it is a dc one there will be no problem

Many years ago I used a toy train set controller to charge a motorcycle battery!

I had no meter of any sort. I just turned it up a bit at a time until the battery started gassing, then left it overnight.

Battery, power supply and I all survived.

Chris

In message , Adrian writes

Or cause a spark near a potential hydrogen source as you connect it to the battery terminals, which is actually the real reason for safe connect chargers.

Which is much more like the correct charge method because it's a regulated 14 volts (there's a coincidence, wow, it's almost like the manufacturer's designed it that way!) than your transformer/diode in a box charger. Just wait 'til you see the charging circuits for the 42V silver/calcium oxide batteries.

Some of the ones I've seen have output fusing rather than current limiting. These will just pop. In any case, no *normal* person's going to do this.

Try to think outside the envelope or you are just a sheeple. There is nothing wrong with being creative or experimental, every great discovery has had umpteen tries and failures first, didn't edison? try 1500 different ways of making a lightbulb till he had a real successful version?