Trickle charger while being stored

[Wa02ger]

Good evening all,

I am after some advice please regarding a trickle charger for my 2015 Def 90 XS with 14,000 on the clock. Since starting a new job I have purchased a second car as I am now commuting over 60 mile per day and do not wish to run the mileage up on my 90. I have therefore put a limited mileage of 2000 on the LR and will probably only use it every 6 weeks for leisure use. In between uses it is stored in a dry garage with an electrical supply available so I am considering using a trickle charger to keep the battery on good condition condition and to prevent it from not starting. 

Can any of you recommend a good trickle charger and advise on any other areas I could look at to take care of the LR?

 

Many thanks,

Matt

[Peaklander]

Ctek make a range of intelligent chargers which sense the battery condition and adjust the charger output (voltage and or current) accordingly.

You can connect the charger and leave it for weeks, knowing that the battery will be correctly maintained (a tiny top-up charge) once it has been brought up to full charge. The charger is supplied with a ring connector pair with a short cable and socket. Mine is wired to leave the socket poking out from under the passenger seat for easy access when the charger needs to be connected / disconnected.

The MXS 5.0 is a suitable charger in their range and you can buy it for around £55. I'm sure there are alternatives too but I have had good experience with this brand.

If you are parking for a few weeks, I wouldn't have thought that there's anything else to do except to be sure that the interior is left dry, so check under any mats, especially in the footwells.

[Wa02ger]

Perfect, I'll get researching them. Thank you very much Peaklander

[ShortTimers]

On 12/08/2017 at 6:49 AM, Peaklander said:

Ctek make a range of intelligent chargers which sense the battery condition and adjust the charger output (voltage and or current) accordingly.

You can connect the charger and leave it for weeks, knowing that the battery will be correctly maintained (a tiny top-up charge) once it has been brought up to full charge. The charger is supplied with a ring connector pair with a short cable and socket. Mine is wired to leave the socket poking out from under the passenger seat for easy access when the charger needs to be connected / disconnected.

The MXS 5.0 is a suitable charger in their range and you can buy it for around £55. I'm sure there are alternatives too but I have had good experience with this brand.

If you are parking for a few weeks, I wouldn't have thought that there's anything else to do except to be sure that the interior is left dry, so check under any mats, especially in the footwells.

I've used the MXS and it's working great... tried a couple of others over the years but this one seems up to the job so would recommend.

 

[timc1967]

Same here +1 CTek way to go.

[FridgeFreezer]

Being used every 6 weeks it should be fine unless the battery's dodgy. Our ambulance stays parked for months in between uses and starts fine every time so far.

I'd be more worried about an unattended charger catching fire than the battery going flat but I'm a bit paranoid about unattended electricals.

[Snagger]

21 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

Being used every 6 weeks it should be fine unless the battery's dodgy. Our ambulance stays parked for months in between uses and starts fine every time so far.

I'd be more worried about an unattended charger catching fire than the battery going flat but I'm a bit paranoid about unattended electricals.

The owner of the storage facility where my 109 is kept suggested I get a smart charger as the battery is flat and I have to jump start it from the hire car each time I visit to fire it up, but I'm not happy to do that for the same reason.  He recently had his insurance cover changed to allow all the cars to be on charge, and it makes me nervous.  Thankfully, only a couple of owners have hooked their cars up, but I'd rather they just jump started them like me.  Unattended battery chargers are just asking for a fire.

[Wa02ger]

Thank you for all the replies. If I'm honest I hadn't even thought of the fire risk side of things. I'll see how it copes over the next 6 months as we go through the colder side of the year and then decide if it's worth getting a charger. 

 

Thank you to all who have replied 👍🏼

[Peaklander]

6 hours ago, Snagger said:

Unattended battery chargers are just asking for a fire.

I'd be interested to know why they are such a risk. There's plenty of power supplies in many situations that are under load constantly. Why would a charger on a vehicle present a risk?

[Snagger]

I shut off any electrical device not needed when left unattended, as any of them can cause a fire if they short or draw too much current.  Many other people do the same, after all, most vehicle and building fires start with an electrical fire, from my understanding.  Battery chargers are higher risk than most appliances as they are dealing with quite high power a lot of the time, and of course are plugged into two electrical systems.  They also use transformers for the voltage change but the output current becomes restricted, causing ab back EMF and heating of the primary coil as the battery charge rises, so a battery continually on charge not only gets hot itself, but also heats the charger.  Smart chargers may deal much better with this than old dumb chargers, but I have also gained a distrust of electronics, especially those which spend their lives in damp and dusty conditions. There is also the risk of physical disturbance of the wiring or damage to the charger passing people, vehicles, even animals - it depends on where you are doing the charging, but in the case of the storage unit I'm using, the mains cable is run along either side of the drive-in lane with the chargers plugged in at the back of each car - that makes them very visible and accessible when someone is present, but also more exposed to being disturbed.  The fuse should blow if a cable is tugged hard enough to dislodge the battery clamp and short the circuit, but I don't like using fuses as the only line of defence.  I'd rather the vehicle was totally electrically inert, so there is no possibility of a short anywhere causing a fire, and deal with the inconvenience of a jump start every six months or so.  It doesn't stop me being tempted to buy a smart charger, though, and at least it would allow an attempt to recondition the batteries when the car is recommissioned.

[Peaklander]

6 hours ago, Snagger said:

Battery chargers are higher risk than most appliances as they are dealing with quite high power a lot of the time, and of course are plugged into two electrical systems.  They also use transformers for the voltage change but the output current becomes restricted, causing ab back EMF and heating of the primary coil as the battery charge rises, so a battery continually on charge not only gets hot itself, but also heats the charger.  Smart chargers may deal much better with this than old dumb chargers,

We are talking of intelligent chargers here and they are intended (designed) to be left connected for extended periods providing the tiniest trickle charge so no power to speak of. I really don't see how a back emf is created through to the primary winding in a conventional (old) charger that just has a rectifier. It's a fair while since my undergraduate days but back emf is created through the motion of coil and magnet and I don't think that's applicable here. These chargers certainly don't care for the battery though, just allowing it to gas feely, which itself is a problem of course.

It's far more dodgy to leave phone chargers plugged in unattended on the kitchen worktop 

[Pawl12]

I've used a £15 Halfords trickle charger successfully for 7 years now on our 2nd car which is garaged & often doesn't get used for a couple of months.
The charger definitely isn't Smart & only puts out a constant 300mA - enough to compensate for the drain from the alarm system etc. It wouldn't compensate for a flat battery, but is fine if the car gets stored while the battery is OK & helped the original battery on the car last for 9 years - much to my surprise !

I understand the concern about chargers being left on unattended for weeks though, my father had a similar Halfords charger & it burnt out / failed after a week. Fortunately no fire, but possibly the result of cheap low quality components & poor internal design not shutting off the 230V supply before an internal compt had burnt out.

I only use mine because I've got Smoke & Heat detectors & the garage is used frequently even when the car isn't.

[Snagger]

I had to get the compound maintenance people out yesterday as one of my ceiling halogen lights had stopped working, and when I replaced the bulb, remained dead.  I pulled the transformer out of the ceiling and found scorching on the case of the transformer and a section of bakelite coupling casing was burnt away.  I may seem paranoid, but I think leaving non-essential electrics running unattended is folly.  When you see the number of enormous building fires that start through bad electrics, as we do down here (had three towers catch fire a fortnight ago, including the Torch's second major blaze), it's a sensible precaution to shut off anything that doesn't need continuous power (fridges and alike).

[reb78]

9 minutes ago, Snagger said:

I had to get the compound maintenance people out yesterday as one of my ceiling halogen lights had stopped working, and when I replaced the bulb, remained dead.  I pulled the transformer out of the ceiling and found scorching on the case of the transformer and a section of bakelite coupling casing was burnt away.  I may seem paranoid, but I think leaving non-essential electrics running unattended is folly.  When you see the number of enormous building fires that start through bad electrics, as we do down here (had three towers catch fire a fortnight ago, including the Torch's second major blaze), it's a sensible precaution to shut off anything that doesn't need continuous power (fridges and alike).

I have seen this with house lighting transformers as well. It is worrying. I do wonder if it is another product of very very cheap stuff with little quality control coming out of China though. I cant beleive how cheap some of these electronics have become in the last 20 years and I cant help but wonder if the prices are driven down because of poor quality components and production.

[Cchase]

I use this little rig:

http://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/battery-tender-junior-0-75a-maintainer-0111940p.html#srp

It is fused and have not had any issues.

Cheers,

Colin

[Wa02ger]

Nice one thank you. I'll look into the UK version of these 👍🏼

[qwakers]

i have 2 of these...

http://www.diy.com/departments/torq-6-amp-car-battery-charger/258200_BQ.prd?ppc_type=shopping&ds_kids=92700016082415788&utm_source=google_cpc&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=PX_GSC_Technical_Generic&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIh57W7ODj1QIVbL7tCh2fmQ6nEAkYASABEgJzBPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CKDr0-3g49UCFTMe0wodXsMNoQhttp://www.diy.com/departments/torq-6-amp-car-battery-charger/258200_BQ.prd?ppc_type=shopping&ds_kids=92700016082415788&utm_source=google_cpc&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=PX_GSC_Technical_Generic&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIh57W7ODj1QIVbL7tCh2fmQ6nEAkYASABEgJzBPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CKDr0-3g49UCFTMe0wodXsMNoQ

 

cheap for what they are, work well for large landrover batterys and safe. whats not to like?

[cackshifter]

I don't have one personally but a mate who has bikes swears by Optimate.

[Wa02ger]

Thank you everyone. Lots of information to chew over and look at the pros/cons of chargers and different makes models, prices etc. Thank you for all the help.

Matt

[cackshifter]

One other point: you don't have to run it 24 x7 - if you feed it through a time switch - I left a car for several months with a charger coming on for half an hour every day, and it was fine.

[Cchase]

The Battery Tender Jr. only charges when needed.

C