CTEK battery conditioner offer

[JMS]

Another heads up for any newbies that don’t have one already.

CTEK mxs5.0 battery conditioner is on offer as part of ‘prime day’ with Amazon. £55

offer ends tonight

it’s more than just a trickle charger- it will ‘exercise’ the battery by charging and discharging over periods when the car is laid up.

Limited-time deal for Prime Members: https://amzn.eu/d/7kpyEUp

 

[Doctor Houx]

Have them on all my fleet. Cars spring to life after months of inactivity with no fault codes.

highly recommended!

 

[midlifecrisis]

I have doubts over them.
If a battery is weak, they give up too easily. A dumb charger will persevere and properly charge a dead battery.

 

[JMS]

I have doubts over them.
If a battery is weak, they give up too easily. A dumb charger will persevere and properly charge a dead battery.

In those circumstances you change the mode to ‘recondition’ - simples.

although to be fair Noco ones are meant to be just as good

 

[Scaf]

I left the lights on my Aston once and after a week the battery was as flat as flat gets, c-tek managed to recover it after a day or so and battery was fine after.

 

[Zep]

If a battery is below a certain voltage, most “smart” chargers won’t work because they think it’s not a battery. Where as one with a transformer in it would try to charge a potato if you connected it, but wouldn’t do the “smart” part.

Having said that, C-tek (and Noco for that matter) have done great marketing as there are plenty of other devices that do the same things without the price tag.

 

[JMS]

Yeah - some people swear the Aldi/Lidl ones do just the same job.

All I know is that CTEK make the ones that get rebranded with the car manufacturers logo adding 200% to the price, and I’m more than happy with mine

 

[Zep]

Absolutely. I’ve not read the specs on the Aldi / Lidl ones but I have one like this

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/32448718...nT5zlQMQoy&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

It has pretty much all the features, plus it tells you the actual voltage.

 

[midlifecrisis]

In those circumstances you change the mode to ‘recondition’ - simples.

although to be fair Noco ones are meant to be just as good

Nope, not 'simples' (Hate that word!). Recondition wouldn't work.

I've revived my present battery from the dead of zero volts using a DC source and then the Lidl charger from 6V upwards The ctek wouldn't charge it, even on recondition at 6V. It would only start to work at around 10.8V.
Recondition is a mode that tries to break sulphur deposits off the lead plates by using high voltage pulses. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.
I've had Optimates too, they're a bit better but that was on smaller bike batteries.

 

[Corranga]

I have a CTEK (Maserati branded one so probably not so featured as the 5.0 mentioned above) and agree with others, they are way too easy to give up on a dead battery. I also have an Oxford Oximiser 900 that I’ve have for well over a decade and it’s still going strong. It will charge / recover batteries at a much lower voltage than the CTEK, and costs about half of the price. At some point though, if the battery hits 0v a dumb trickle is need to get it high enough in the first place mind.

 

[spkennyuk]

I have a CTEK (Maserati branded one so probably not so featured as the 5.0 mentioned above) and agree with others, they are way too easy to give up on a dead battery. I also have an Oxford Oximiser 900 that I’ve have for well over a decade and it’s still going strong. It will charge / recover batteries at a much lower voltage than the CTEK, and costs about half of the price. At some point though, if the battery hits 0v a dumb trickle is need to get it high enough in the first place mind.

If you have a spare battery you can spoof the smart chargers by running jump leads to the totally dead battery from another battery with 11/ 12 volts or so and then connecting the charger to the battery that is alive. The charger will then trickle charge both batteries. Once the voltage is high enough on the tired battery you can then just charge that on its own.

 

[philw696]

If you have a spare battery you can spoof the smart chargers by running jump leads to the totally dead battery from another battery with 11/ 12 volts or so and then connecting the charger to the battery that is alive. The charger will then trickle charge both batteries. Once the voltage is high enough on the tired battery you can then just charge that on its own.

Been doing that for years.

 

[midlifecrisis]

And that's my point, smart chargers are sh!t