Trickle Charging without mains or solar power?
Discussion
I've had a good look around and done some searching on here and still not found a suitable answer. I have a car parked in an underground car park with no mains power access or solar access. The car has an alarm, tracker etc etc so needs a trickle charger connected.
Has anyone used the Ctek CS FREE and can confirm if it will work as a trickle charger without having any mains or separate power source? I still haven't got a clear answer from Ctek.
Has anyone used a trickle charge from a portable power pack and can give any real world examples of how long it lasts or if it is workable?
Yes I know use the car every week or 2 blah blah, but sometimes I go away for a month at a time and the car goes flat enough not to be started after 14-20 days.
Has anyone used the Ctek CS FREE and can confirm if it will work as a trickle charger without having any mains or separate power source? I still haven't got a clear answer from Ctek.
Has anyone used a trickle charge from a portable power pack and can give any real world examples of how long it lasts or if it is workable?
Yes I know use the car every week or 2 blah blah, but sometimes I go away for a month at a time and the car goes flat enough not to be started after 14-20 days.
This?
https://www.ctek.com/uk/battery-chargers-12v-24v/v...
It appears to say that it will maintain your battery from a separate leisure battery. Obviously you can't charge from nothing, you have to provide some sort of power source.
https://www.ctek.com/uk/battery-chargers-12v-24v/v...
It appears to say that it will maintain your battery from a separate leisure battery. Obviously you can't charge from nothing, you have to provide some sort of power source.
You'll need to trickle charge off something which has a significantly larger capacity than the battery in the car. Invertors running at low output are quite inefficient so powering a trickle charger from a similarly sized battery would only gain you a few days.
You might be able to get something useful with a couple of big leisure batteries, an invertor to create the 230V ac the battery charger needs and a normal trickle charger. It would need building, housing and fusing correctly to ensure it isn't a fire risk though.
Disconnecting the battery when leaving the car for longer periods may be a better option, and possibly leaving the car connected to a sacrificial second battery to keep the alarm etc running while you're away if needed. You can then take that battery away to charge it after. Doing that would keep the battery in the car in decent condition. The sacrificial battery won't need to be particularly good as it would only power the lower current items and never be needed to start the car.
You might be able to get something useful with a couple of big leisure batteries, an invertor to create the 230V ac the battery charger needs and a normal trickle charger. It would need building, housing and fusing correctly to ensure it isn't a fire risk though.
Disconnecting the battery when leaving the car for longer periods may be a better option, and possibly leaving the car connected to a sacrificial second battery to keep the alarm etc running while you're away if needed. You can then take that battery away to charge it after. Doing that would keep the battery in the car in decent condition. The sacrificial battery won't need to be particularly good as it would only power the lower current items and never be needed to start the car.
Even a jump pack or second JCB sized battery is going to have a limited life compared to an ongoing power source. Obviously if you put two big jump batteries in the boot, you might keep going for a couple of months.
You haven’t mentioned the car in question, but if the concern is theft of the entire vehicle due to the alarm powering down, have you considered extending the power to just that circuit via the fuse board and a large second battery?
Again, if theft is the concern, then a battery powered tracker like this might be a worthy backstop,
https://www.trackersecurity.co.uk/tablet/index.htm...
You haven’t mentioned the car in question, but if the concern is theft of the entire vehicle due to the alarm powering down, have you considered extending the power to just that circuit via the fuse board and a large second battery?
Again, if theft is the concern, then a battery powered tracker like this might be a worthy backstop,
https://www.trackersecurity.co.uk/tablet/index.htm...
Pointless considering DC batteries via an inverter to power an AC mains trickle charger due to the inefficiency and power loss.
Short of a genny chugging away in a corner, you're just looking at increasing the car's capability to store 12v, its total Ah capacity, so keep it simple, 100Ah leisure battery in the boot/footwell connected to the vehicle battery with a flying lead and a decent plug/socket C-Tec charger style (I wouldn't rely on a fag lighter type plug).
Short of a genny chugging away in a corner, you're just looking at increasing the car's capability to store 12v, its total Ah capacity, so keep it simple, 100Ah leisure battery in the boot/footwell connected to the vehicle battery with a flying lead and a decent plug/socket C-Tec charger style (I wouldn't rely on a fag lighter type plug).
TwinKam said:
Pointless considering DC batteries via an inverter to power an AC mains trickle charger due to the inefficiency and power loss.
Short of a genny chugging away in a corner, you're just looking at increasing the car's capability to store 12v, its total Ah capacity, so keep it simple, 100Ah leisure battery in the boot/footwell connected to the vehicle battery with a flying lead and a decent plug/socket C-Tec charger style (I wouldn't rely on a fag lighter type plug).
That would work well and be the simplest approach. (I'd put about a tenth of an ohm in series just to limit the inrush current.)Short of a genny chugging away in a corner, you're just looking at increasing the car's capability to store 12v, its total Ah capacity, so keep it simple, 100Ah leisure battery in the boot/footwell connected to the vehicle battery with a flying lead and a decent plug/socket C-Tec charger style (I wouldn't rely on a fag lighter type plug).
A more complex solution which would give you slightly more capacity is a deep cycle 12V battery powering a boost converter outputting a regulated 13V float voltage. That's an easy DIY but you probably won't find one off the shelf.
I thought I'd give an update on this.
I bought a Ctek XS Free. It is similar to a booster, but doesn't do it in 1 big jolt which could upset some of the electrics, it doers a 15 minute slower charge so the battery has the power to start on its own. It doesn't work as a trickle charger without being connected to the mains or to a slave battey.
I've just come back from 12 days in South America and I made sure the XS Free was full and an old spare TVR battery I had was fully charged. The TVR battery was actually the same spec as the 488 by coincidence but they battery is used and a good 5 years old. I linked it up so it was using the spare as the source for the trickle charge and while I was away for 10 days the battery was reading 13.3v/13.2v so the trickle charge was working as expected. Day 11 it jumped to 13.5v so I'm guessing that the spare battery was out of juice to work as a trickle charge source. I'm presuming then the XS free used its internal battery to boost charge the car battery until empty. Now a full 12 days after leaving the car is reading 13v and the XS free is empty and they spare battery is drained showing 11.1v with a meter.
So there you have it, an old car battery and an XS free will keep everything going fo 12 days and then your car will drain as normal, so with a bit of luck you could leave the car 3-4 weeks and still be ok.
I bought a Ctek XS Free. It is similar to a booster, but doesn't do it in 1 big jolt which could upset some of the electrics, it doers a 15 minute slower charge so the battery has the power to start on its own. It doesn't work as a trickle charger without being connected to the mains or to a slave battey.
I've just come back from 12 days in South America and I made sure the XS Free was full and an old spare TVR battery I had was fully charged. The TVR battery was actually the same spec as the 488 by coincidence but they battery is used and a good 5 years old. I linked it up so it was using the spare as the source for the trickle charge and while I was away for 10 days the battery was reading 13.3v/13.2v so the trickle charge was working as expected. Day 11 it jumped to 13.5v so I'm guessing that the spare battery was out of juice to work as a trickle charge source. I'm presuming then the XS free used its internal battery to boost charge the car battery until empty. Now a full 12 days after leaving the car is reading 13v and the XS free is empty and they spare battery is drained showing 11.1v with a meter.
So there you have it, an old car battery and an XS free will keep everything going fo 12 days and then your car will drain as normal, so with a bit of luck you could leave the car 3-4 weeks and still be ok.
R11ysf said:
spare battery is drained showing 11.1v with a meter.
That won't have done the spare battery any favours - it would probably have much reduced capacity next time you need it.Do you have a battery leak problem? Flattening a full car battery plus the charger's internal battery in just a couple of weeks seems pretty severe.
GreenV8S said:
R11ysf said:
spare battery is drained showing 11.1v with a meter.
That won't have done the spare battery any favours - it would probably have much reduced capacity next time you need it.Do you have a battery leak problem? Flattening a full car battery plus the charger's internal battery in just a couple of weeks seems pretty severe.
I work away from home for 2 weeks at a time & when I come to restart the car after 2 weeks it is fine.
A couple of months ago I did an engine change & as a result the car wasn't used for nearly 3 months while I got an engine & the time to do it. When I came to move the car out of the garage to remove the engine it started just fine after 3 months of storage in the garage.
It seems you have an underlying problem that you are just "booting down the road".
R11ysf said:
Exactly as above. Alarm, Immobiliser and tracker and I also asked other owners in the Ferrari forum and they said 2 weeks was good! Similarly I have a 250bhp Mk1 Golf and it will start after 3 months unused. Horses for courses I guess.
If you can't reduce the drain then I suggest providing a bigger capacity battery to power the battery charger, so it doesn't get damaged by excessive discharge. Since your battery charger doesn't seem to cut in until it's killed the external battery, you could protect the external battery with an automatic battery cut-off which isolates it when the voltage gets too low. If you have the budget, look for a storage battery designed for deep discharge rather than a conventional car/truck battery.Gassing Station | Home Mechanics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff