Does anywhere actually sell a battery charger anymore?

[R11ysf]

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

[Scrump]

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.

Edited by Scrump on Monday 1st April 09:14

[akirk]

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?

[Monkeylegend]

If the battery is completely flat it might not take a charge, you might have a cell gone down, so could be new battery time not new charger time. I had that situation last year with the starter battery on one of mine, you could fast charge or trickle charge and it made not a blind bit of difference.

New battery and all was ok again.

I paid £25 for a Halfords own brand car and bike battery trickle charger for batteries up to 70 amps. It has kept my SL batteries fully charged over winter with no problems.

[Equus]

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

[buggalugs]

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.

[R11ysf]

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.

[227bhp]

As far as i'm concerned when a battery is totally flat a basic charger won't touch it so trying to do it cheap doesn't work.
I've got one and it registers some really low amps on the gauge when connected up, but that's about it, it never actually resuscitates a battery that's gone too far.
I got fed up with dicking around and just splashed out on the Ring smart charger. I don't know how it works, but it uses magic and does the job of making knackered batteries usable again. I do have a flat, flatter than a flat pancake battery still connected to the car which drained it so it will be registering 0 volts, I'll take it off later and see if it attempts to charge it if you're interested.

We're also really fed up with doing chargers and jump starters every month too, can't you try and dig out the several thousand previous threads and read those instead of starting yet another?

Edited by 227bhp on Monday 1st April 10:55

[anonymous-user]

So what the OP is actually saying is, you can buy a proper battery charger as hes found them, but doesn't want to spend the money to get a proper one.

[Riley Blue]

As has already been mentioned, a completely flat battery may not be possible to charge. 'Touch wood' I've always been able to persuade the one in my Riley to wake up after a winter's hibernation of a few months by bringing it in from the garage and charging it overnight. My charger is a RingRSC612, priced at around £70.

I also have a Suaoki U28 2000A booster pack that is capable of starting my 4.2 A8. The Suaoki isn't cheap at £125 but it's never failed to start any of my cars and is small enough to keep in the glove box or boot.

[sparkythecat]

Can you not fool your smart charger into working by connecting another battery in parallel with the one that you are trying to charge?

[Mikey G]

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.

[harrycovert]

I made my own from old microwave transformer.
Link
https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/built-...

Google lots of info.

[DuraAce]

Surely if its totally flat (ie zero volts) then it's effectively scrap isn't it?

I have a ctek mxs5 charger and that charges flat batteries for me no problem.

Flat in this sense being a battery that won't start a car, turn on the headlights, or operate the central locking. IE its down around 11/12 volts.

Don't think I've ever seen a battery with zero volts that would take a charge... They've all had dead cells and been scrapped.

[Equus]

keirik said:

So what the OP is actually saying is, you can buy a proper battery charger as hes found them, but doesn't want to spend the money to get a proper one.

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.

[R11ysf]

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.

[akirk]

R11ysf said:

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+

I guess I was lucky - I paid £56 and it has no issue with that size engine (two of my cars are bigger and I have jump started trucks...)
lots of different manufacturers / power sizes - very nice size to keep in the boot - far more convenient than the traditional ones, plus with a usb port you can power phones / laptops / etc.

[DuraAce]

R11ysf said:

The boot light drained the battery to zero. The battery is good just flat (not fked - thanks for your input).

So it's at zero, as in zero volts?

Yet you know its a good battery?

[Equus]

R11ysf said:

The battery is was good just flat (not fked - thanks for your input).

EFA

Non deep-cycle lead acid batteries don't like being deeply - or fully - discharged.

It might have been good before it was flattened. It may very well not be now.

If you don't want a smart charger, get an analogue one - there remain plenty of options - but if you can't 'kick start' the battery by jumping it off, you might be better off investing your money in a new battery than adding yet another charger to your growing collection. Once fully discharged, they're never quite the same again.

Edited by Equus on Monday 1st April 16:19

[dhutch]

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