Smart Charger Recommendations

[BartonBKing]

My Optimate went faulty after 30 years so I bought an Oxford Oximiser 900. That lasted for about 2 years. Any recommendations before I splash out on a new Optimate? What you lot got? It’s constantly hooked up over winter to keep the battery maintained.

[Mr Moofo]

I have a NoCo Genius one that I use - and can do both old fashioned and lithium batteries. Seems good

[Nordboy]

I tried an Optimate and whatever the oxford version was but they both broke. I've had my Ctek one for about 8 yrs now and ti works great. It's got modes as well so will do car and bike batteries. About £70 iirc but hugely outlasted the others.

[Yorick]

I just got one from Halfords. Under £40

[weeksy]

Noco genius for us.

[dern]

I’ve got two nocos and they’re superb. I have a four in one bolted to the garage wall and hook up everything to that.

[iansoady]

I've had a CTEK XS5.0 for about 10 years and it's brilliant. Would be even better if it had a 6 volt option.....

Like most smart chargers it struggles a bit with a completely flat battery so I have an old school standard charger for those.

[MrLongbeard]

Oxford Oximiser 900 for the past 5 years, if it dies it'll be replaced with a Noco Genius 2x2

[Skub]

I've used Optimate all year around for decades. Never had one break,so I've not tried anything else.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Noco Genius for me

[mangocrazy]

Optimate/Accumate for me, but I run them off 24/7 timers which only activate the chargers for a couple of hours per week. I would imagine this lessens the likelihood of failure significantly. I prefer not to leave the battery on charge continuously, even at trickle charge levels.

[Count Steer]

On the subject of batteries, I was recently pondering the purchase of a battery analyser* and found a £99 one on Amazon. Anyone got any experience with such a thing?

* Didn't buy one as realistically, as with most toys, I'd use it a couple of times and it'd end up in a box in the garage and any vehicle battery failure I had would be sudden and catastrophic based on previous experience. ..... but I still like the idea of having one.

[MingtheMerciless]

On the subject of batteries, I was recently pondering the purchase of a battery analyser* and found a £99 one on Amazon. Anyone got any experience with such a thing?

* Didn't buy one as realistically, as with most toys, I'd use it a couple of times and it'd end up in a box in the garage and any vehicle battery failure I had would be sudden and catastrophic based on previous experience. ..... but I still like the idea of having one.

Spent many years testing Telecoms Lead Acid standby batteries using either Hioki or Yuasa testers ( about £2K). These would measure the batteries internal resistance in milliOhms and from this and the manufacturers info we would deduce whether the batteries were good, on their way out or totally Farked. This gave a pretty good indication of the batteries status but occasionally you'd find one that passed all the tests but folded in minutes when they were taken off charge.

[Dodgy69]

I'd go for one that's simple to use and understand.

[Skub]

I'd go for one that's simple to use and understand.

I don't think I've read a book on any Optimate,just plug it in and walk away.

[wull]

I have one of each but prefer my Noco plus I also use the Noco boost starter thingy majig which is brilliant, very compact but starts pretty much anything. I’ve been using it at work in the workshop.

[katana]

No mention of the Lidl or aldi smart chargers

[katana]

On the subject of batteries, I was recently pondering the purchase of a battery analyser* and found a £99 one on Amazon. Anyone got any experience with such a thing?

* Didn't buy one as realistically, as with most toys, I'd use it a couple of times and it'd end up in a box in the garage and any vehicle battery failure I had would be sudden and catastrophic based on previous experience. ..... but I still like the idea of having one.

A while ago I had a point to point battery drop tester(that I found in a vacated garage unit), and a yuasa battery tester that did a printed out report that did a print out report detailing the cca and load capacity. Niether helped when they batteries in my car died.

[mboy]

CTEK MXS5.0

It has saved 3 batteries already now, paid for itself several times over.

Oxford Oximisers are notoriously shit. At best they don't properly charge higher capacity batteries, at worst they actually fail to charge batteries properly full stop. Avoid!!!

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

69 Dodge Charger, that's a smart charger