I popped into Lidl today to buy some Duck Breasts (not easy to find and the Lidl ones are very good). While there, I noticed they had some 'Smart' Battery Chargers- they look like copies of the CTEK ones, similar to those sold by Aldi now and then (I have one of those). For £13, they seemed a good buy and my Eldest daughter doesn't have a battery charger, £13 is worth it to save the hassle of the 20 min drive.
I thought I'd mention it, in case others are interested.
The Aldi one I have, which looks much the same, and I've had some time, has been fine.
They've been selling these for years - although the external design has changed slightly several times.
They are very good indeed and especially value wise, compared to CTEK, etc.
Only common fault in service is the switch stops working. Easy and cheap to replace if you can solder - I've done several for myself and friends.
What I dunno is if CTEK uses a better quality switch. The one in the Lidl charger is a generic you'll find replacements for on Ebay, etc. Called a tactile switch, and there are lots of versions, so you need to measure up the old before buying.
I have one built into the old Rover. At that price seemed silly not to.
I threw mine out after only a few uses, the switches inside are s**te. The Ctek one may be expensive, but my one has lasted many, many years of almost constant use, while the cheapo aldi/lidl one died within a year or two. A big advantage of the ctek one is that it ignores power outages and re-starts when the power goes back, unlike the cheapos.
I never thought of building one into a car. As we often have long holidays and our previous car (a Honda CRV), which we left at home, tended to end up with a flat battery after 4/5 weeks, I did run a cable to the rear with some Anderson Powerpoles on it. I then had a matching
12V cable connected to a charger running through the garage wall. I'd back the CRV up close enough and 'hook it up'.
Son-in-law now has the CRV but no where to host a similar set up- their drive doesn't lend itself to it. Hence the charger. More of a 'just in case', as they aren't likely to be leaving the car for long periods.
Interestingly, the Outlander didn't seem to 'drop' noticeably at all when we left it for 4 weeks recently (we just got back). There is a system whereby by the 12V battery is recharged from the main, drive, battery everyday if the car isn't driven but, even so, the main battery didn't show any noticeable loss of charge.
+1 Cheap smart chargers aren't worth the bother. In *fact* any product with "smart" in the name is well worth avoiding IME. Give me a *dumb* charger, a dumb phone and a dumb car any day of the week.
I fitted it in the boot, as there is an always live fusebox there with a spare way. A waterproof Buccaneer main inlet connector just under the bumper so pretty well out of sight.
Only slight snag is you have to press the switch on it to start charging. But then you'd want to look at it after charging to make sure the battery was full, so no big deal.
It is a common failure. Not not on all. However, a new switch costs pennies and none of those I've repaired have failed again. Oh - I've fixed a CTEK too. ;-)
You have power cuts that often? ;-) But yes, having to set it may be not what everyone wants.
Beauty of the Lidl one is it changes automatically to a maintenance charge after the battery is full, and can be left on indefinitely. It also charges a battery faster than the average sort of dumb sort you like - as well as being smaller lighter and cheaper.
Power cuts here are extremely rare, but out in the country they are still common and having auto restart means you don't need to manually turn it on again.
I leave a ctek one on the car I am not using, when I put it outside I unplug the ctek, leaving it on the car, when the car comes back in I plug it back in, no need to look at the charger.
Some people might want it on a time switch, or powered by a solar array, again auto re-start is an important function.
I did use the old one I have to 'force' a bit of charge into a dead flat battery that the smart charger wouldn't detect - and then put it on the smart charger.
But if the power is interrupted the Aldi (/Lidi?) ones switch off and resets to voltage display mode so no more float charge. 2-4 weeks later, say hello dead flat battery.
Cheap smart chargers won't charge a flat battery. I think the CTEK has a pulse charge battery recovery mode.
So you have to use a dumb charger when the dumb car has drained the battery pancake flat through the door lock circuit. Mazda 323F after about 2 weeks the voltage dropped below some threshold that put it in to fast drain mode, found door locks were pulling over 1 amp by pulling fuses. Charged the battery and the high drain disappeared.
Or the fwit cheap Hawk alarm starts going off to alert you to the fact that the battery is going flat. Just pancakes it completely much sooner than it should. Nothing you can do when you are a 1000 miles away on holiday, just makes the neighbors want to burn your car for the few hours it takes to finish off the battery.
Cars (yes 2x) when left have to be parked 200 m up road to be safely above flash flood level. Solar maintainer?
Smart chargers won't fully charge a Ford silver calcium battery as they require 14.8 V (not to be confused with lead calcium batteries). I don't think there are any chargers at reasonable price that will fully charge these batteries. Most have a 14.7 V cold setting but not the full 14.8 V.
In my days of economy motoring with cheap aluminium leads I always preferred tow starting. I will confess to find the Li-Ion jump starter packs very convenient.
I have a pretty massive and heavy Halfords one. Claims 11 amps on the front of the thing in large print. The Lidl one - small enough to fit in your pocket - charges a battery to full quicker. Despite claiming only 4 amps or so output.
Many modern chargers have a relay with diode in series with its coil to prevent wrong connection. This is activated by battery volts. So won't operate with a totally flat one. Of course whether a totally flat one will ever recover is a gamble.
Other way is to connect a second battery jumps start pack etc - along with the charger to kick it on, then disconnect when the charger has connected.
I use a solar panel about the size of an A4 sheet of paper to trickle charge even quite large car batteries if they're to be left undriven for a spell. It even fried one such battery on an unusually sunny day last March. So I put a couple of diodes in the leads, one a 13V zener in parallel; no more probs.
Over the years I have bought four of them to have around the place, the latest one with the built in battery meter. One of the four failed (SM IC) and for what it cost I couldn't be bothered to try to fix it.
I like the fact that they are water resistant, so can be used outdoors. That if mains is lost, they disconnect from the battery - I had an expensive Optimate, which if mains was lost would completely discharge the battery, it cost me expensive motorbike batteries.
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