What Battery Charger

[TheBows]

Hello,

Just been down to my motorhome in storage and seen the leisure battery is down to 60%. I am not going anywhere for another 6 weeks so will not be hooking it up to a power source until then. I think I need to bring the battery home and put it on charge there. Can someone recommend a battery charger? I know I need a multi stage one but am baffled at the choice. Some of them do seem to be not far short of the price of a new battery.


Thanks


Stephen

 

[Eddystone]

You need to think about the engine battery too. There is potentially a lot of drain on it from the alarm etc.
I use a multi stage charger I bought from Lidl for £14 but they won't have them this time of year.

 

[Eddystone]

You could use a solar panel trickle charger for the engine/cab battery.

 

[Eddystone]

Bump

 

[138go]

In the long run you will be better with a solar panel to keep the batteries charged. Commercial vehicles are not designed to sit around doing nothing so they never thought that the engine battery can drain over a few weeks with the electronics that are running. The Swift had a small button which was part of the ignition lock. Pressing it you could turn everything off. You then had to use your key to open it up as it switched the central locking off as well.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[two]

A (smart) charger with at least 10A output should be OK for general purposes. The more Ah your battery capacity the longer it will take. One with around15A output would be better.

 

[Nasher]

I also have the 14 quid Lidl one - brilliant bit of kit for the money.

But for my on board charger I have a Victron blue power ip65 available in a variety of power outputs. At over 100 notes, not cheap but certainly one of the best and also silent, as others have posted 10amp minimum

 

[autorouter]

Can someone recommend a battery charger?

To avoid overcharging, the charger amperage should not exceed C/5. For example, if your battery is 100Ah capacity, the charger current should not exceed 100/5 = 20 amps. There is no minimum level, you can use a lower amperage charger. It will take a longer time but will charge just as well in the end.

The important thing is to get a smart charger. This will charge in at least three stages, monitoring the progress as it goes, so it never overcharges.

I use a CTEK MSX5.0, which charges my 2 100Ah batteries OK, but a bit slow. Its main use is to charge my motorbike battery, and it can switch from car to motorcycle mode.

 

[autorouter]

You need to think about the engine battery too

Here's another tip that you can use or laugh at, your choice.

The problem was that the starter battery is very inaccessible and difficult to remove. The leisure battery is fairly easy to remove.

Take the leisure battery home and charge it from the mains using a CTEK MSX5.0 charger.

Buy a small 150 watt pure sine wave inverter. This is powerful enough to run a 5amp charger.

Back at the motorhome, connect the inverter to the leisure battery. Connect the charger to the inverter. connect the charger to the starter battery.

Of course you then may need to take the leisure battery home to charge it up again.

The advantage of a 150watt inverter is it is small enough to run from a standard cigarette lighter socket. Anything bigger needs direct battery clips or proper wiring direct to the battery.

 

[pappajohn]

The Swift had a small button which was part of the ignition lock. Pressing it you could turn everything off. You then had to use your key to open it up as it switched the central locking off as well.

Oh yeah, when did that happen ?
That button, when pressed, allowed the key to be turned one step further to turn on the parking lights....it disabled all other lighting, Nothing more, nothing less.
It's had nothing to do with Swift, it was part and parcel of the Fiat cab electrical design.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[pappajohn]

As you are charging at home you don't need an expensive multistage charger.
Any cheap charger will do the job as you can keep a regular check on charge state and switch off when charged or close to charged then check every couple of weeks to see if it needs further charge.
Pointless paying £100plus for a charger you may use once or twice a year.

 

[138go]

Oh yeah, when did that happen ?
That button, when pressed, allowed the key to be turned one step further to turn on the parking lights....it disabled all other lighting, Nothing more, nothing less.
It's had nothing to do with Swift, it was part and parcel of the Fiat cab electrical design.

It did far more than that as when you got back in the clock / date had reset and all the data in the computer was gone. The MH was a Swift 2012 vintage

 

[TheBows]

Thanks everyone. I have ordered a CTEK MSX5.0 charger from Halfords. £10 more than on Amazon, but read that the CTEK will not acknowledge the 5 year guarantee unless the charger is returned to them by the vendor, which would be Amazon. Amazon refuse to do this after 1 year! Hopefully an extra £10 well spent.