Recommend me a battery charger/conditioner

[Ambleton]

I have a couple of classic cars. Smallish batteries, only running lights and ignition and starting <1500cc NA engines. Obviously over winter they don't get used much and can be 8-12weeks between drives (or more depending on how broken they are).

Live in the garage.

There appears to be tonnes on the market ranging from £20-£200. Are CTEK king of the hill? Is it all hype? Are any others worth looking at?


Semi related question- Can these also be used as a normal 12V supply to set up a rust removal electrolysis bath or do the monitoring systems throw up issues with that sort of use?

[hairy vx220]

Very happy with my CTEK as are plenty of others.

[GreenV8S]

I bought a Victron bluetooth charger recently and I'm very pleased with it so far. It is a smart battery charger (up to 7A) as well as a maintainer and reconditioner, and it supports a few different battery types.

I suppose it could possibly be used for electrolysis, but it would be massive overkill and I wouldn't want to risk using a relatively expensive battery maintainer for that - a cheapo battery charger would be perfectly adequate.

[normalbloke]

I’m glad you started this post, it’s a subject that’s never been covered prior.

[Ambleton]

Thought I'd keep you lot entertained! Some people like to play the same game over and over.


I'll use the search function next time

[Mort7]

CTEK works well with my Caterham. I don’t leave it permanently connected though, just recharge every couple of weeks during the Winter months when not in use.

[normalbloke]

Ambleton said:

Thought I'd keep you lot entertained! Some people like to play the same game over and over.


I'll use the search function next time

Good morning, no worries, CTEK is the answer.

[PhilF329]

I bought one of these and have been really impressed by it. Needs to be connected to battery terminals though, but easy to pop on and off multiple cars

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ring-6v-12v-4-Amp-Smart...

[g3org3y]

hairy vx220 said:

Very happy with my CTEK as are plenty of others.

+1

I use a MXS 5.0.

[PhilF329]

Quite a price difference though, £80 for the CTEK or £25 for the Ring. The Ring has brought a couple of batteries back to life for me and is a very good intelligent charger / conditioner