Battery charging via cigarette lighter

[ToscanS]

Hi Folks,

after sticking the optimate adapter for the cigarette lighter in, the passenger light and the leds of the window knurl periodicly went on and off with a click of a relais(?) (about every two second). The optimate gives information about correctly charging!
What has happened and is it not possible to charge the battery over this connection? FYI: The car isn´t locked and the drivers window is opened!

For informations about this "phenomenon" I´ll be very lucky! The season will start soon - but not with an empty battery ;-(

Andreas

[mybrainhurts]

Relay...

[ninetynine]

if your battery was very flat when you charged it disconect for 60 secs this will reset the ecus

[da_murphster]

Interested in the answer here - someone has fitted a charging point to my Tuscan but never really understood why they did not just use the cig lighter

[Konrod]

Actually, good point here. the Tuscan comes with an Anderson connector as standard, wouldn't it make more sense to charge through this point (meaning that the car can be closed up/locked), or am I missing something?

[Laser Sag]

John charging via the anderson connector is a pain in the butt, means getting under the car each time to connect and disconnect.Have used an accumate for the last 7 or so years by plugging in to the cigar lighter and running the cable out between the side window and its rubber seal,allows car to be locked and alarm left enabled,also easier to connect etc.T o OP can only assume that as the window is down there is some form of circuit being made when you plug in the accumate,have never had this on my Tuscans or the Sagaris.Try feeding the cable in as above and then the window can be left closed and hopefully that will stop the problem.
Kev

[The Surveyor]

I thought that the Acumate type things are battery conditioners (not chargers), meant to keep a battery topped up, not resurect a flat one.

I use the halfords conditioner on my Tuscan through the lighter socket without any problem but these only put a small charge back into the battery. They only have a 3 amp fuse in-line so the current isn't huge. Also, they only work on a battery which is showing some charge back from the lighter. The Halfords one doesn't operate at all if there is less than 6v returning!

If you had a flat battery and needed to charge it from flat, you'll need a beefier charger and I would suggest that's when you should be using a direct contact to the battery via the Anderson connector.

Only my thoughts...

Paul

[glow worm]

There is a voltage drop when using the ciggy lighter hence it takes longer than using a directly battery wired Accumate or the Andersen connector...My Chim has a directly connected Accumate and will "condition" in half the time of the Tuscan via the ciggy lighter.

[SonicHedgeHog]

I gave up using the cigarette lighter with my optimate. Was absolutely useless. I've just attached the croc clips to the battery and the wire attached to them out from behind the carpet. Works a treat.

[Laser Sag]

I am a little bit confused by the comments on being useless via the cigarette lighter or not being as effective,the accumate is designed as a battery conditioner ie to keep the charge level topped up during periods of inactivity which it does very well via any connection.It is not intended as a battery charger which would require direct connection to the battery or the anderson connector.