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Best 12V Battery Charger

Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2023 10:16 am
by advance2020
Many posts have mentioned you Guys often own a CTEK battery charger. Would like to know which model you use, and hence which I should invest in. Think its time to replace my Halfords basic charger. My 12V only reached 87% SoC after 20 hours of charging. So used Granny to charge car's High Voltage and got 12V to 99% in less than 2hrs

CTEK MXS 5.0 seems to be the one? Has Recon mode and desulphur

Re: Best 12V Battery Charger

Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2023 3:55 pm
by londiniumperson
That's the one that I have which replaced my 30+ yr old battery charger.
At the time that I got mine, over 7 years ago that model was always top in reviews and the best value for money.
One advantage is that there are various accessories, for example extension leads or leads for permanent attachment to the battery for quick/easy connection/disconnection.

Re: Best 12V Battery Charger

Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2023 6:42 pm
by EEEE
I use the CTEK 5.0 10amp , and have the permanent attachment accessory and extension cable etc (mainly for the prelude). It was a little on the pricey side but its obviously a decent bit of kit. It has the external temperature probe and also the ability to switch between SLA and AGM batteries (with the e being normal SLA type).

I did use it to charge an old 17ah battery that I keep as a spare for 12v testing in the garage, and either the battery was on its way out, or the 10amp was a bit too much for the smaller battery - it did not finish the charge cycles and the battery was then slightly swollen so be careful using it to charge smaller batteries from a UPS/Alarm/golf cart/etc.

The charger will also act as a 12v 10a power supply in case you need to power up a car whilst there is no battery attached - I've not used this feature however.

Re: Best 12V Battery Charger

Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2023 8:42 pm
by advance2020
londiniumperson wrote: Sun Jan 08, 2023 3:55 pm That's the one that I have which replaced my 30+ yr old battery charger.
At the time that I got mine, over 7 years ago that model was always top in reviews and the best value for money.
One advantage is that there are various accessories, for example extension leads or leads for permanent attachment to the battery for quick/easy connection/disconnection.
Many thanks for confirmation- A

Re: Best 12V Battery Charger

Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2023 8:47 pm
by 5thcivic
I've used a Maypole 4A charger for years on various Civics and now on the Jazz. It's half the price of Cteks but basically the same spec. For the E I use the Lidl charger for 13 quid at the time. Fully electronically protected and able to charge normal and AGM batteries. Only downside is I bought the connectors for permanent connection to the battery myself from Amazon and crimped them on the Lidl. The Maypole came with permanent connectors as alternative to the croc clips, so now the chargers are interchangable between cars. Most of these electronic types cannot start a flat battery, I still have my old analogue transformer charger which will start a flat battery in extreme emergency for half an hour after which the modern ones with their microprocessor pulse testing etc can take over once they reach 6 volts.

Re: Best 12V Battery Charger

Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 11:40 am
by Highanddry
I bought the CTEK PRO25S.
I had one smaller CTEK model fail to trickle charge another car.
Essentially this is how i justified buying this expensive CTEK model.
Whether that is actually needed ? i doubt it, but did not want to mess around.
It loads pretty fast and does the job !

Re: Best 12V Battery Charger

Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2023 11:46 am
by jtmf
nice thank you for the info