Does anywhere actually sell a battery charger anymore?

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I have a few CTEK battery trickle charges but the downside with them is that they will not charge a fully flat battery. So I did a load of reading online for best battery chargers and bought a NOCO Genius 3500 which despite actually saying it will charge a flat battery it categorically will not. I have even contacted NOCO customer services and they acknowledge that the battery needs some charge for their smart charger to enter repair mode, but IT WILL NOT charge a fully depleted battery.

So can anyone recommend a cheap basic battery charger that will actually charge a fully depleted battery. I don't need anything fancy, the cheaper and more basic the better, I already now have 3 de-sulphating / repairing trickle chargers but they can't even start doing anything until the battery has some charge in it.

Thanks

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akirk said:

I have several of these:


from DB Power
have certainly used them for batteries which appear to be completely dead - though I am not sure how you would confirm that that were actually dead!

Also have had very good customer service from them (lost the plug - they sent me out a free new one!) so perhaps contact them and ask?

Thanks, I just had a look at them, but they won't start my 4.0L car so I would have to buy a much bigger one which is £70+

Scrump said:

I have kept an old battery charger for this reason.
I noticed one similar to mine the other day, made by Draper.

Edit:
The draper one is this:


Nothing "intelligent" about it. An old fashioned analogue dial and on/off switch. I cannot be sure it will work for you though as it only appears similar to my antique.

Thanks, I just looked for one of these big enough to charge my 75Ah battery and it is nearly £50. Seems like there aren't any cheap basic chargers anymore.

Equus said:

Type 'car battery charger' into Amazon or Ebay searches, and you'll find more options than you know what to do with.

Thanks for your "help". I have tried that and henve why I bought the NOCO. Go type 'car battery charger' in to Amazon and see what comes back. 90% of them WILL NOT charge a battery from flat. It seems like there is no longer a battery charger, they are all maintainers or optimizers or "smart chargers" but without any charge at all they will not do anything.

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Equus said:

Ah, OK.

I want an Aston Martin Valkyrie, but I don't want to pay anything like what Aston Martin is asking for one.

Can anyone suggest where to look (I've tried Ebay and Amazon already, obviously)?

And as others have said, if the battery is totally flat, chances are it's fked. No battery charger, no matter how sophisticated or unsophisticated, will unfk it.

I guess you're having a bad day? Sorry to hear that but jumping in to have a go at someone and swear won't make you feel any better.

I have a 1 year old battery on my TVR which was £80 and all good. I had a new boot seal fitted and unbeknown to me this new boot seal means I have to slam the boot lid unlike previously when it closed under its own weight. The boot light drained the battery to zero. The battery is good just flat (not fked - thanks for your input).

I am simply looking for a battery charger, all these smart chargers will not pick it up. I used to have a £10 Argos charger which was completely unsophisticated but would charge anything even form flat and even if it took 24hours. I'm just trying to find the same again.

I'm not trying to be cheap or anything I now have 3 £50 trickle smart chargers which simply aren't smart enough to pick up the battery from flat.

Mikey G said:

buggalugs said:

Connect the charger up to the flat one then put jump leads on it for a few seconds, it will continue to charge after you remove them.

Yep done this before, in my case used a boost pack on the dead battery with the ctek connected at the same time until eventually it kicked in on its own and recovered the battery.

Perfect thank you! This is the exact, useful kind of advice I needed.

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dhutch said:

As said, while a minor pain, you can 'jump' the totally dead battery with an ok one.

As said, zero volts is often toast, but if you know it's history (IE, was perfect till it had a bootlight drain it for 48h or so) they are remarkably resiliant.

Daniel

Hey thanks, yes I had drained the previous one before a few times as my car lived in a garage with no output for my trickle charger. Usually once jump started it was absolutely fine with regular use, so I have no worries about it working long term. I just now have 3 cars all in central London and only one lives in the garage so I'm sure I will have a need for a proper charger again but it seem there just isn't a basic one. I guess I will just have to buy a jump starter pack and use that to charge it until the so-called "smart" chargers can take over.

Thanks to all those who actually tried to help

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Dr Doofenshmirtz said:

To actually answer the question...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Autocare-4-Amp-Car-Batt...

AWESOME!

Thank you very much, that link was expired but I found an 8 Amp one for a tenner. Thanks very much.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/223139414088

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GreenV8S said:

A lead-acid car battery that has been taken to zero volts is almost certainly going to be useless as a car battery afterwards anyway.

Chris32345 said:

If a battery has got that flat a ctek charger won't charge it
It's probably toast

But they aren't! I have previously had several batteries in an old Beetle that I had and my Mk1 Golf that have sat in excess of 2 years without charge and have come back absolutely fine. My Golf is regularly not used for months at a time and regularly a good long charge brings the battery back to serviceable life. It was just needing a cheap basic charger to kick start it again.

These so called smart chargers are now telling people batteries are dead or not revive-able when they quite simply are.