Battery charger

[ifb19]

What is best mains charger out there?
To be used in garage. One car very occasional use so long term connected. Others for where they might get used for perhaps a month. Views? Experience of what's great, what's not

[Sebring440]

Asked many times on here. Here's a few: (lots more available!)

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[ifb19]

Thanks 😊

[normalbloke]

Ctek is the answer.

[ifb19]

Noco
Any views on them?

[Scrump]

Ctek has been better than the other ones I have tried (although have not tried Noco). The Mxs 5.0 is the ctek I currently have.

[greysquirrel]

Ctek MSX5.
Also often rebadged and sold for 3 times the price for Bentley, Ferrari and Maserati among others.
Charged is great but I’ve had to replace the seals on the connector (can get o ring on eBay for a couple of quid) and recently it’s been failing on charging and looks like the extension lead is faulty, £15 to replace.

I have a Noco jump charger and it’s crap, but their battery tenders look ok but I’d stick with ctek.

[Smint]

A failed CTEK caused the premature failure of a brand new Varta battery over 1 winter, so won't go down that road again, my Lidl cheapy smart jobbie wouldn't ressurect it.

Bought a NOCO 10 last year, would have bought the 5amp version but the 10 was on offer at the time so bought the higher output model.
Very well made, easy to use, does the job of keeping my various spare batteries and jump pack in top form.
Had already disposed of the by now 4 year scrap Varta, would have been an interesting test to see if the NOCO could have recovered the battery but that wasn't to be.

[GreenV8S]

Note that a battery charger and a battery maintainer are separate things. It seems to me that what you want here is a battery maintainer.

I'm very pleased with my Victron battery maintainer. They have a good reputation for reliability and it's convenient to be able to check the status over bluetooth.

[Mr-B]

I have a Lidl one and it has been very good. I had a car sorn'd in the garage over one winter and let the battery go flat and the charger got it back to life, took a couple of days though and I made sure that the car goes on charge if I don't use the car for a few days now. The battery is now 7 years old and still works.