Portable Battery Conditioner

[relaxitscool]

Hi, my car is generally left at work on Sunday evening and picked up again on a Friday afternoon. My previous cars battery suffered and I'd like to avoid this.

I don't have access to mains so can't use a regular CTEK battery conditioner and have started looking at portable devices which can be recharged at the weekends.

Has anybody had experience of these and can offer any recommendations or capacity for such a device.

Thanks

Rob

[MikeM]

Hi, my car is generally left at work on Sunday evening and picked up again on a Friday afternoon. My previous cars battery suffered and I'd like to avoid this.

I don't have access to mains so can't use a regular CTEK battery conditioner and have started looking at portable devices which can be recharged at the weekends.

Has anybody had experience of these and can offer any recommendations or capacity for such a device.

Thanks

Rob

Hi Rob, if you can’t get mains power feed to the car you have a few options that you could consider. Carry a booster pack such as a Noco GB40 ( not a charger but will give you a quick jump start) Also use a Solar panel trickle charger plugged into the OBD ( not high powered but will maintain a fully charged good battery to a degree) but not a replacement for a CTEK or similar.

There is another unit called CTEK Free which I think can double as a mains charger, but you have to leave it connected for 15 mins when used as a jump starter. You can find all of these on Amazon and various other sites.

[relaxitscool]

Thanks Mike I will probably start researching the solar option.
It's a shame I can't use a power bank of some sort. I guess the downside of that is having a lipo or lithium ion battery sat in the car during varying conditions.

[scm]

The car should be fine left for that length of time - maybe just give it an overnight charge Fridays when you get home. MIne is infrequently used, and then mainly for short journeys and I only use my CTEK occasionally, when the mood takes me. Battery is original from March 2017 so doing okay!

[Jaguandy]

Years ago I had a solar panel charger I propped up inside the windscreen. On that car I just plugged it into the fag lighter. It worked well to (barely) maintain the voltage over weeks at a time. A normal battery should easily last a week without charging but of course you need to do enough miles or charge at home to get it back to full charge. As mentioned above.

[scm]

Years ago I had a solar panel charger I propped up inside the windscreen. On that car I just plugged it into the fag lighter.

Fag lighter (or whatever they're called in these smoke-free days) is ignition switched in the Jag so wouldn't work.

[relaxitscool]

I've had a look at the AA branded model which plugs into the OBD port to allow continual charging. I agree I'd would expect the battery to last a week although sometimes the car could be left for longer, but as suggested if it isn't used at the weekend it will need a top up anyway, hence why I though I may as well find a solution.

Cheers all

Rob

[scm]

During lockdown when I was isolating mine stood for three months unused and it started on the button after that. It told me the battery was low and obviously needed a good charge, but three months ....

[stickshift steve]

I had the AA branded one in my camper van obd socket, I am not saying that it was the cause but I lost the can system which turned out to be the speed/ dash housing which cost me £500 to repair so I never used it after that.
We sell and repair trucks where I work and have had quite a lot of electronic control units blow due to spikes when jump starting ,rather than putting them on charge . We can see on the manufacturers computer that we plug in , when exactly the ecu has blown as it has a time stamp and is usually just after jump leads have been put on to try start the truck.

[Kev]

As Stickshift Steve said, ECU’s can be easily spiked with over-voltage going in through the OBD port with all the sensitive modules on the CANBUS which is why they recommend only using the specific jump-start points and not even connecting directly to the battery as this bypasses all the battery monitoring shizzle