Battery Conditioner

[MickC]

Unfortunately my trusty Airflow battery conditioner has given up the ghost. Well actually I dropped it and it broke, so can't really blame it. Its been in use over winters for 20 odd years and no issues, plugged into the chim's cigarette lighter socket.

So I would just buy another one but its out of stock at Airflow's site and they are not answering mails as to when (if!) it might be back in stock, so I need a replacement.

Any recommendations please? Amazon has loads, of varying prices and presumably quality. Preferably with a cigarette lighter adaptor.

[miniman]

CTEK MXS5

[MickC]

miniman said:

CTEK MXS5

Thanks. yes looking at that on amazon, and the MXS7. they have a cigar lighter adaptor too. Any more?

[SlimJim16v]

I've heard of too many issues with ctek, mine included. Optimate has been recommended on here.

[PabloGee]

I have a Draper charger/maintainer. Cheaper than CTek, but doesn’t have the name. Works fine.
If/when it dies, I’ll research again, but was imagining CTek.

I had a Ring charger and it failed within a year through winter. Replaced under warranty, same again.

[Hoofy]

I like my Noco Genius 5. It can also bring a battery back to life ie one that's been sulfated.

[IanA2]

PabloGee said:

I had a Ring charger and it failed within a year through winter. Replaced under warranty, same again.

Me too, twice, sold the third one....

[IanA2]

Hoofy said:

I like my Noco Genius 5. It can also bring a battery back to life ie one that's been sulfated.

Yup, having tried soooo many....NOCO Genius 5 has now been doing the business for the three years.

[keynsham]

SlimJim16v said:

I've heard of too many issues with ctek, mine included. Optimate has been recommended on here.

Totally agree. I had two CTEK chargers and both packed in after a year. One actually boiled the battery on my motorbike and the casing became all distorted!!

Optimate are the way to go!

[Englishman]

Had one Optimate for 18 years, and three Ctek, various models, for between 20 and 6 years, all are still working fine.

[Riff Raff]

keynsham said:

SlimJim16v said:

I've heard of too many issues with ctek, mine included. Optimate has been recommended on here.

Totally agree. I had two CTEK chargers and both packed in after a year. One actually boiled the battery on my motorbike and the casing became all distorted!!

Optimate are the way to go!

My experience was the other way round. An optimate I had went wrong and boiled the battery on my Elise. I’ve used CTEK since then and never has a problem with them. 5A one for the cars, and a 0.8A one for bikes.

FWIW, CTEK rebranded boxes are sold by the likes of BMW and Porsche, so they must think they are reliable enough.

[Hoofy]

IanA2 said:

Hoofy said:

I like my Noco Genius 5. It can also bring a battery back to life ie one that's been sulfated.

Yup, having tried soooo many....NOCO Genius 5 has now been doing the business for the three years.

Out of interest, are you leaving it plugged in all the time? (I only use mine to top up and spot-conditioning, and in fact have a CTEK CS Free for giving a low battery a boost as it's less faff because my cars live outside.)

[keynsham]

Riff Raff said:

keynsham said:

SlimJim16v said:

I've heard of too many issues with ctek, mine included. Optimate has been recommended on here.

Totally agree. I had two CTEK chargers and both packed in after a year. One actually boiled the battery on my motorbike and the casing became all distorted!!

Optimate are the way to go!

My experience was the other way round. An optimate I had went wrong and boiled the battery on my Elise. I ve used CTEK since then and never has a problem with them. 5A one for the cars, and a 0.8A one for bikes.

FWIW, CTEK rebranded boxes are sold by the likes of BMW and Porsche, so they must think they are reliable enough.

Everyone has different experiences I guess! But I can't trust CTEK now after my experiences with them! I have had Optimate chargers running on all my cars and bikes for years now without a blip!!

[IanA2]

Hoofy said:

IanA2 said:

Hoofy said:

I like my Noco Genius 5. It can also bring a battery back to life ie one that's been sulfated.

Yup, having tried soooo many....NOCO Genius 5 has now been doing the business for the three years.

Out of interest, are you leaving it plugged in all the time? (I only use mine to top up and spot-conditioning, and in fact have a CTEK CS Free for giving a low battery a boost as it's less faff because my cars live outside.)

Indeed we do, we use the car so little these days, that it's pretty much permanently plugged into our 2017 2 litre Rav4.

[David 99]

No one ever (not even the manufacturers of suppliers of chargers) seems to say what voltage the charger delivers in maintenance mode. It's all well and good having chargers that can revive a battery from 1 volt or whatever, and can desuphate, and can charge up an HGV battery from nothing to full in 2 minutes or whatever. That's why they get 5 star reviews and win comparison tests, but when you have a few cars and use some in summer and some in winter and therefore always have some stored and constantly hooked up, the maintenance mode becomes the most important thing.

A lot seem to maintain about 12.8V, but a lot of AGM batteries and stop start batteries are unhappy with that and cars with battery condition monitors are flashing up warnings about low batteries as a result, when stored.

CTEK do seem to claim that they maintain at 13.6V, which is ideal for AGM, I think. That is why CTEK are popular. If only we knew what the rivals maintained at then we could buy them.

[IanA2]

David 99 said:

A lot seem to maintain about 12.8V, but a lot of AGM batteries and stop start batteries are unhappy with that and cars with battery condition monitors are flashing up warnings about low batteries as a result, when stored.

.

Our Rav 4 is stop start with an AGM battery, we do very very low annual mileage so it's been hooked up to the NOCO since May 2022, no problems at all.

[David 99]

Do you know what voltage it maintains at? It would be interesting to put a meter on it and see.

[Hoofy]

IanA2 said:

Hoofy said:

IanA2 said:

Hoofy said:

I like my Noco Genius 5. It can also bring a battery back to life ie one that's been sulfated.

Yup, having tried soooo many....NOCO Genius 5 has now been doing the business for the three years.

Out of interest, are you leaving it plugged in all the time? (I only use mine to top up and spot-conditioning, and in fact have a CTEK CS Free for giving a low battery a boost as it's less faff because my cars live outside.)

Indeed we do, we use the car so little these days, that it's pretty much permanently plugged into our 2017 2 litre Rav4.

Interesting to note. Thanks.

[PabloGee]

Interesting point.
My Draper charger/maintainer proclaims ‘full’ at 14.4V on the Bosch S4 027 unit the previous owner installed.
It’s a wet battery, which reportedly needs a lot more maintenance than an AGM battery.
That said, I haven’t plugged the battery in for weeks now, and it’s holding fine, as a 4 year old battery.

[David 99]

14.4 isn't full for most chargers, it's normally 14.7, but most importantly what does it maintain at? It won't be 14.4.