Beware Battery Maintainers
Discussion
They can give a false sense of security
I have been using a Lidl Ulgd 3.8 amp, which has a nice clear digital voltage readout
It will ensure the car starts first time, but go for a drive, stop and try to start a hot engine, and it won't turn over
Luckily waiting ten mins for the engine to cool somewhat will allow the car to start
When I got home I tried restarting the car with the maintainer connected to see that the voltage dropped to 6.3v when I attempted to start the engine
In comparison the cold start voltage was 10.8v,
The battery itself was 11 months old, and I actually managed to get a replacement under warranty from EuroCarParts yesterday - Result!
I have been using a Lidl Ulgd 3.8 amp, which has a nice clear digital voltage readout
It will ensure the car starts first time, but go for a drive, stop and try to start a hot engine, and it won't turn over
Luckily waiting ten mins for the engine to cool somewhat will allow the car to start
When I got home I tried restarting the car with the maintainer connected to see that the voltage dropped to 6.3v when I attempted to start the engine
In comparison the cold start voltage was 10.8v,
The battery itself was 11 months old, and I actually managed to get a replacement under warranty from EuroCarParts yesterday - Result!
Correct me if I'm wrong Paul, but I seem to remember that you went with the cheapest, nastiest battery that ECP supply, a 'Lion'?
If so, its a timely reminder that (with batteries at least) you get what you pay for. You did well to get (almost) a year out of it!
Did they let you upgrade to something better?
My battery of choice from them for my customers is Exide, and I have never had one fail under warranty, though even that might not be the best choice for a Cerb.
Rik
If so, its a timely reminder that (with batteries at least) you get what you pay for. You did well to get (almost) a year out of it!
Did they let you upgrade to something better?
My battery of choice from them for my customers is Exide, and I have never had one fail under warranty, though even that might not be the best choice for a Cerb.
Rik
TwinKam said:
My battery of choice from them for my customers is Exide, and I have never had one fail under warranty, though even that might not be the best choice for a Cerb.
Rik
The Lion was an emergency purchaseRik
I did have an Exide in my other car and it did exactly the same as the Lion
I could leave the Exide on the maintainer, start it with no issues, go for a drive, and then become stuck when I need to restart
The issue isn't the quality of the battery, that just determines how quickly they fail
The problem is that a maintainer has repeatedly fooled me into driving a car with a failing battery, and then getting stuck as a result
RUSSELLM said:
Out of interest, is that digital display telling you the voltage that the charger is sending out, or is it attempting to read a hot battery ?
You can connect it and see the battery voltage without switching on the charging circuitI can't believe it's taken me so long to check the voltage drop when starting
Jhonno said:
Perhaps the Lidl charger is damaging the cells if you have had it happen twice to new batteries, including the better quality Exide? A battery, especially one kept on trickle charge shouldn't fail after 11 months..
This^^Lion are known to be pants... the sort of thing you put on a car to sell it!
TwinKam said:
Jhonno said:
Perhaps the Lidl charger is damaging the cells if you have had it happen twice to new batteries, including the better quality Exide? A battery, especially one kept on trickle charge shouldn't fail after 11 months..
This^^Lion are known to be pants... the sort of thing you put on a car to sell it!
Jhonno said:
Perhaps the Lidl charger is damaging the cells if you have had it happen twice to new batteries, including the better quality Exide? A battery, especially one kept on trickle charge shouldn't fail after 11 months..
Sorry, I should have mentioned that the Exide was probably five years oldBut the maintainer still fooled me in to thinking it was fine
ukkid35 said:
You can connect it and see the battery voltage without switching on the charging circuit
I can't believe it's taken me so long to check the voltage drop when starting
Yes, carrying out a discharge test by operating the starter is the only option if not having a battery discharge tester, even when using this method a freshly charged battery will often test as good yet fail when tested after being left to cool downI can't believe it's taken me so long to check the voltage drop when starting
This is a really good technical review on amazon about how all battery conditioners are not the same - even the staged ones.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R1THU0OHIH12W9
[quote]Customer Review
Keith B
NOCO vs CTEK: A technical view...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 May 2014
If your experience of car battery charging is limited to old, conventional, bulky transformer-based linear chargers, any modern smart charger will prove a revelation; they're compact, lightweight, charge efficiently, and invariably require little user monitoring or intervention to achieve a good charge. This Noco Genius 3500 proves no different... to a point.
Here, I'm comparing a borrowed Genius 3500 against an established favourite, an older Ctek MXS4003* (simply because of those Cteks I own it matches most closely the Genius's capabilities). The primary application for either of these chargers is to charge a 12-volt car/boat/camper-van battery. So never mind the marketing hype, the flashing lights or the claimed number of charging steps, the key issue here is how well either of these smart-chargers will actually charge your battery.
The principle difference between these two chargers is the charging algorithm - and it's a very important difference: In use, the Genius uses an inferior methodology (known as the "III" algorithm) of simply stepping the current down by a fixed/sizable amount as soon as the battery achieves optimum voltage at each step of the cycle (purporting to be additional charging steps!); as a consequence the voltage also drops and thus the battery is rarely ever at its' optimum state during the whole charge cycle. In real life, it charges the battery to a just-adequate level, but nowhere near an optimal one. In fact, this charging algorithm is almost identical to some of the very cheap German Supermarket own-brand smart chargers available at half this price, and there's nothing "Genius" or "Wicked Smart" about that!
In sharp contrast, all similarly sized Ctek chargers apply full current until the optimum voltage is reached, and then continuously & progressively reduce/adjust that current whilst still keeping the battery locked at that optimum voltage - without gassing or overheating (The "IUoU" algorithm). This stretches the battery, as it is kept at its optimum voltage throughout pretty much the entire charging cycle (Bulk, Absorption and - where included - Float).
You can see these differences most vividly if you take a semi-depleted/semi-sulphated battery and attach each charger in turn, keeping a voltmeter across the terminals throughout the charge cycle: On my 7-year old, well used and partially sulphated Varta 74Ah/640CCA(SAE) 12v car battery, the Genius applied an average 13.1 volts (often less, occasionally slightly more) during all its' numerous charging phases, and simply "trickled" an arbitrary low current to achieve no more than 12.7 volts during its' maintenance cycle. Never at any time did it hold this battery at its' optimum. By comparison, the Ctek throughout its' bulk and absorption charging locked the battery at a constant 14.4 volts (optimum); during float maintenance, a constant 13.6 volts (again, optimum); this is achieved by continuous monitoring of the battery and adjustment of the charging profile, which the Genius with its' simpler lower-tech approach fails to do. The net result of my own (admittedly limited) testing showed the Ctek to deliver a perkier, more highly charged battery every time. Even calculating in the small differences in rated output of each charger, the Ctek also charged the battery somewhat faster and consumed approximately 20% less mains current doing it too, suggesting greater efficiency. This operating cost could be particularly significant when using a smart-charger to maintain a battery longer-term in an infrequently used or stored vehicle.
Note also that with a severely flat 12-volt battery, a Ctek will begin recovery and charging from as little as 2-volts residual - The Genius requires a minimum of 7-volts: Although there are tricks you can use to force a charge, this higher threshold could pose problems when attempting to recover/charge a battery that is simply too flat to start a vehicle.
There are other aspects that should be commented on - not least some of the outrageous claims Noco are making for this product: On Noco's website, it is claimed "The G3500 restores batteries to their original capacity". Running a digital CCA battery test, this proved not to be the case with my well-used but still perfectly servicable 74Ah battery; I personally wouldn't have expected this (or any) charger to restore any aged/well-used battery to "original capacity" - but I didn't measure any capacity improvement whatsoever (I again wouldn't expect to with this charger's limited technology) and I feel to make such a bold unqualified claim is deceitful and grossly misleading. Or how about "The most advanced charger ever"? Noco might do well to compare their simplistic charging approach against (as random examples) the Optimate 6, the BatteryMinder 12248, the GysFlash 4 or 7, and indeed anything that Ctek have to offer (typically the MXS 3.8 or MXS 5.0T) - which are all comparable 12v smart-chargers, yet all are considerably more technically advanced, more efficient, and equally safe in use - albeit usually at a higher price point. Again, Noco's claim that the G3500 "Brings batteries back to life; An advanced recovery mode repairs damaged areas of the battery..." is stretching the truth: There are potentially many performance-reducing damaged areas of a battery that cannot be repaired by any means - such as internal shorts, shedding, corrosion, or heavy, crystalised sulphation. At best, the pulsing of the G3500 applied below 10.5 volts might help to remove some light/soft sulphation, but that is as far as this claim to "repair damaged areas of the battery" seems to go (it is in any case a common technique found in even the cheapest brands of smart-charger; there appears to be nothing "advanced" about Noco's implementation of it here). I could go on...
Provided your battery isn't too flat, sulphated or otherwise damaged, this Genius 3500 works reasonably well and will likely prove a better option than many conventional old-fashioned transformer-based linear chargers. But is it the best at this price level? In my testing, it replicated exactly the charging profile and overall performance of my Aldi 3.8 amp smart-charger - which also offers the 6/12-volt, bike/car, AGM/cold weather and "recovery" charging options of this G3500 - but the Aldi smart-charger typically costs a much more reasonable £14. Alternatively, for slightly more but still much less than the cost of this Noco G3500, there's the technically much better 3.8 amp Maypole 7423A or the 4 amp German ATEK4000 (search here on Amazon for "Absaar 77949"), both of which offer enhanced feature sets as well as superior Ctek-like constant current/constant voltage charging algorithms (although they too also require a minimum 7-8v residual voltage for recovery). It is in this low-cost company that the G3500 starts to look comparatively expensive for what is in reality a strongly branded but - as smart-chargers go - a decidedly mediocre product.
Pitched against the competition, considering the price when balanced against quality, performance and features, this Genius 3500 is perhaps just about worthy of 3 stars (it's okay, if unexceptional), but the misleading marketing should make any prospective buyer very wary: The many wildly exaggerated claims could I feel set the expectations of the non-technical buyer unrealistically high, and for that - together with it's relatively higher price for the basic smart-charger technology on offer - this Noco Genius 3500 has to be downgraded to just 2 stars.
(*The Ctek MXS4003 is an older 4-amp version of the current Ctek MXS5.0).
[/quote]
https://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R1THU0OHIH12W9
[quote]Customer Review
Keith B
NOCO vs CTEK: A technical view...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 May 2014
If your experience of car battery charging is limited to old, conventional, bulky transformer-based linear chargers, any modern smart charger will prove a revelation; they're compact, lightweight, charge efficiently, and invariably require little user monitoring or intervention to achieve a good charge. This Noco Genius 3500 proves no different... to a point.
Here, I'm comparing a borrowed Genius 3500 against an established favourite, an older Ctek MXS4003* (simply because of those Cteks I own it matches most closely the Genius's capabilities). The primary application for either of these chargers is to charge a 12-volt car/boat/camper-van battery. So never mind the marketing hype, the flashing lights or the claimed number of charging steps, the key issue here is how well either of these smart-chargers will actually charge your battery.
The principle difference between these two chargers is the charging algorithm - and it's a very important difference: In use, the Genius uses an inferior methodology (known as the "III" algorithm) of simply stepping the current down by a fixed/sizable amount as soon as the battery achieves optimum voltage at each step of the cycle (purporting to be additional charging steps!); as a consequence the voltage also drops and thus the battery is rarely ever at its' optimum state during the whole charge cycle. In real life, it charges the battery to a just-adequate level, but nowhere near an optimal one. In fact, this charging algorithm is almost identical to some of the very cheap German Supermarket own-brand smart chargers available at half this price, and there's nothing "Genius" or "Wicked Smart" about that!
In sharp contrast, all similarly sized Ctek chargers apply full current until the optimum voltage is reached, and then continuously & progressively reduce/adjust that current whilst still keeping the battery locked at that optimum voltage - without gassing or overheating (The "IUoU" algorithm). This stretches the battery, as it is kept at its optimum voltage throughout pretty much the entire charging cycle (Bulk, Absorption and - where included - Float).
You can see these differences most vividly if you take a semi-depleted/semi-sulphated battery and attach each charger in turn, keeping a voltmeter across the terminals throughout the charge cycle: On my 7-year old, well used and partially sulphated Varta 74Ah/640CCA(SAE) 12v car battery, the Genius applied an average 13.1 volts (often less, occasionally slightly more) during all its' numerous charging phases, and simply "trickled" an arbitrary low current to achieve no more than 12.7 volts during its' maintenance cycle. Never at any time did it hold this battery at its' optimum. By comparison, the Ctek throughout its' bulk and absorption charging locked the battery at a constant 14.4 volts (optimum); during float maintenance, a constant 13.6 volts (again, optimum); this is achieved by continuous monitoring of the battery and adjustment of the charging profile, which the Genius with its' simpler lower-tech approach fails to do. The net result of my own (admittedly limited) testing showed the Ctek to deliver a perkier, more highly charged battery every time. Even calculating in the small differences in rated output of each charger, the Ctek also charged the battery somewhat faster and consumed approximately 20% less mains current doing it too, suggesting greater efficiency. This operating cost could be particularly significant when using a smart-charger to maintain a battery longer-term in an infrequently used or stored vehicle.
Note also that with a severely flat 12-volt battery, a Ctek will begin recovery and charging from as little as 2-volts residual - The Genius requires a minimum of 7-volts: Although there are tricks you can use to force a charge, this higher threshold could pose problems when attempting to recover/charge a battery that is simply too flat to start a vehicle.
There are other aspects that should be commented on - not least some of the outrageous claims Noco are making for this product: On Noco's website, it is claimed "The G3500 restores batteries to their original capacity". Running a digital CCA battery test, this proved not to be the case with my well-used but still perfectly servicable 74Ah battery; I personally wouldn't have expected this (or any) charger to restore any aged/well-used battery to "original capacity" - but I didn't measure any capacity improvement whatsoever (I again wouldn't expect to with this charger's limited technology) and I feel to make such a bold unqualified claim is deceitful and grossly misleading. Or how about "The most advanced charger ever"? Noco might do well to compare their simplistic charging approach against (as random examples) the Optimate 6, the BatteryMinder 12248, the GysFlash 4 or 7, and indeed anything that Ctek have to offer (typically the MXS 3.8 or MXS 5.0T) - which are all comparable 12v smart-chargers, yet all are considerably more technically advanced, more efficient, and equally safe in use - albeit usually at a higher price point. Again, Noco's claim that the G3500 "Brings batteries back to life; An advanced recovery mode repairs damaged areas of the battery..." is stretching the truth: There are potentially many performance-reducing damaged areas of a battery that cannot be repaired by any means - such as internal shorts, shedding, corrosion, or heavy, crystalised sulphation. At best, the pulsing of the G3500 applied below 10.5 volts might help to remove some light/soft sulphation, but that is as far as this claim to "repair damaged areas of the battery" seems to go (it is in any case a common technique found in even the cheapest brands of smart-charger; there appears to be nothing "advanced" about Noco's implementation of it here). I could go on...
Provided your battery isn't too flat, sulphated or otherwise damaged, this Genius 3500 works reasonably well and will likely prove a better option than many conventional old-fashioned transformer-based linear chargers. But is it the best at this price level? In my testing, it replicated exactly the charging profile and overall performance of my Aldi 3.8 amp smart-charger - which also offers the 6/12-volt, bike/car, AGM/cold weather and "recovery" charging options of this G3500 - but the Aldi smart-charger typically costs a much more reasonable £14. Alternatively, for slightly more but still much less than the cost of this Noco G3500, there's the technically much better 3.8 amp Maypole 7423A or the 4 amp German ATEK4000 (search here on Amazon for "Absaar 77949"), both of which offer enhanced feature sets as well as superior Ctek-like constant current/constant voltage charging algorithms (although they too also require a minimum 7-8v residual voltage for recovery). It is in this low-cost company that the G3500 starts to look comparatively expensive for what is in reality a strongly branded but - as smart-chargers go - a decidedly mediocre product.
Pitched against the competition, considering the price when balanced against quality, performance and features, this Genius 3500 is perhaps just about worthy of 3 stars (it's okay, if unexceptional), but the misleading marketing should make any prospective buyer very wary: The many wildly exaggerated claims could I feel set the expectations of the non-technical buyer unrealistically high, and for that - together with it's relatively higher price for the basic smart-charger technology on offer - this Noco Genius 3500 has to be downgraded to just 2 stars.
(*The Ctek MXS4003 is an older 4-amp version of the current Ctek MXS5.0).
[/quote]
Edited by tejr on Friday 3rd July 16:05
tejr said:
This is a really good technical review on amazon about how all battery conditioners are not the same - even the staged ones.
That is really great info thanks, I'm really tempted to buy a CTEKBut I still don't understand how the CTEK is going to tell me that: sure the battery will start the car, but you won't be able to restart later
Or, will it prevent me from starting the car in the first place?
ukkid35 said:
the car starts first time, but go for a drive, stop and try to start a hot engine, and it won't turn over
This sounds more like a starter heat soak problem than a battery problem. I had the same issue when I first got my Cerb 15 years ago. It started fine when cold, but struggled to crank when hot. I replaced the starter and wrapped it in a heat shield and the problem has never re-occurred. Just a thought.notaping said:
This sounds more like a starter heat soak problem than a battery problem.
Except it starts fine if I attach my uber cheap lithium battery boosterThis but more like £25
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/253527177234
More importantly the voltage drop gives away the fact that it's a battery issue not a starter issue
When you attach the booster you are effectively increasing the available current to the starter. It does not explain why the starter needs more current when hot. The only explanation for this is a change in the condition of the starter - ie. getting hotter. see
https://www.knowyourparts.com/technical-resources/...
Honestly - I would look more in this area than the battery. It starts fine when cold - so the battery has enough oomph. The starter gets a lot of heat soak from the exhaust manifolds - hence the increase in resistance and drop in current.
Something like this might help.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/652410422
https://www.knowyourparts.com/technical-resources/...
Honestly - I would look more in this area than the battery. It starts fine when cold - so the battery has enough oomph. The starter gets a lot of heat soak from the exhaust manifolds - hence the increase in resistance and drop in current.
Something like this might help.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/652410422
notaping said:
When you attach the booster you are effectively increasing the available current to the starter. It does not explain why the starter needs more current when hot. The only explanation for this is a change in the condition of the starter - ie. getting hotter.
Yes you are absolutely right, the hot engine/starter is more power hungry, but that is not the issueI've completely failed to explain that the issue I'm concerned about is that a battery maintainer can mask the fact that a battery is no longer viable
It may be able to start a cold engine immediately after being connected to a maintainer for a week or two
But ask the battery to start an engine repeatedly, over a short period of time, when the engine is up to temp, and it doesn't want to know
Probably because the effective capacity is now more like 7Ahr rather than the original 70Ahr
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