Trickle charging/conditioning

[Secla]

Does anyone who uses there rx8 as a second car use any kind of trickle charger/conditioner so there battery is always charged etc. After being left for longer periods ?

Any suggestions for a reasonably priced one ?

[njkmr]

Aldi were just selling one for about £12.
I got one but have not used it yet so cant comment on how good they are.

[Conan]

There fantastic bits of kit for any batteries and you should be able to find something for about £35 upwards.
Regards
Pete

(or even cheaper it appears ) y

[Eddie_r32]

Mine lives on one, I have a ctek that was on Amazon deals one day Ctek saves so much stress and agro

[Tonygoodyear]

I use an optimate 4 that I used to use on my motorbikes. It works great.


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[casey]

Have used CTEK charger for about 5 years. Great piece of kit.

[Scartlead]

Same as above, Ctek, the way to go

[chris.guest]

I have a RING one for my battery that's stored in the boot. I leave mine for weeks sometimes and it seems to be working well

[RX8Red72]

I have been using an AA charger over the winter. Not moved car since end November and it started with no problem last week - £24 off Amazon

[thales]

I bought this one in a deal for £25, unfortunately, it is £36 now. They advertise this as a "smart charger" with their 8 stage charge cycle. They claim it can also recover dead batteries. The LCD is quite nice because it tells you what it is doing and it automatically changes to maintenance mode when the battery is full.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07 ... UTF8&psc=1

[warpc0il]

The pigtail cable with "plocket" is a good idea, as it makes it easy to connect/disconnect, without disturbing the battery cover, while being much safer than using the croc-clips.

[geofftl1000r]

The only thing I can think of is making sure what type you use if you have lithium based battery. The recovery system for dead lead acid batteries sends high voltage to the cells to help clean the plates and lithium batteries hate over voltage apparently. Not many can afford the high cost of lithium batteries though.

[Freeman38]

Lidl trickle charger excellent bit of kit and cheap as chips.
Just as good if not better than the CTek kit, as some of the Porsche guys have gone through several CTEK's and then swapped to the Lidl because of the price and they are still going strong.

[Secla]

Do Lidl always have them or is it one of those things they have in on offer now and again ?

[Rudolph]

Do Lidl always have them or is it one of those things they have in on offer now and again ?

I use the Lidl's over 15 years already........never broke down.......all (calcium-lead) batteries are mostly 95% of their time connected to the trickle charger reaching a healthy life, close to 6 years......the AGM battery of my Rex is already 10 years ok.
I have 5x Lidl's now........3x for my cars, Mazda2 1,5 GT-M, Mazda RX-8-HP and Lotus Esprit Turbo SE........plus 1x for my motorbike, a 1975 Honda Goldwing GL1000 K1......and 1x Lidl for spare .
Every car/bike has a connection (female) plug in front of the car at spoilerheight.
Every 12V cable is equipped with a "brake"-connection in case I forget to remove the plug before driving....it is a good provision which helped me several times already.
Two of the 12V cables are even running a couple of meters beyond my pavement as I can store only one car plus bike in my garage

[Secla]

I use the Lidl's over 15 years already........never broke down.......all (calcium-lead) batteries are mostly 95% of their time connected to the trickle charger reaching a healthy life, close to 6 years......the AGM battery of my Rex is already 10 years ok.
I have 5x Lidl's now........3x for my cars, Mazda2 1,5 GT-M, Mazda RX-8-HP and Lotus Esprit Turbo SE........plus 1x for my motorbike, a 1975 Honda Goldwing GL1000 K1......and 1x Lidl for spare .
Every car/bike has a connection (mother) plug in front of the car at spoilerheight.
Every 12V cable is equipped with a "brake"-connection in case I forget to remove the plug before driving....it is a good provision which helped me several times already.
Two of the 12V cables are even running a couple of meters beyond my pavement as I can store only one car plus bike in my garage

An esprit turbo

Which model ? My fathers had a late s3 in his garage for the last 10 year being “restored”

[Rudolph]

*****
Hi Secla,

This is my 1990 Lotus Esprit Turbo SE (LHD)........I am the owner since 1993 / 15.000 mls; it now has 33.000 mls on the odometer.
The Esprit has always been garaged and is in a superb / near new condition.
It is cpl. original and has a very rare Lotus color "Steel Blue" with blue /grey leather interior and elm burr finished dashboard.
After all those 26 years I am still very happy with this Lotus, which (honestly) at that time I could hardly /not afford myself; I took a 2nd mortgage on my house to be able to pay the car but did never regret it.......within a couple of months I hope to become 76 years old and fortunately I still am physically capable to slip into the cabin of this 45 inch low piece of British heritage....it keeps you young.
Regards, Ruud

[brix79]

That, is a beautiful thing.

[warpc0il]

[Secla]

Very nice

My father in laws is a red 95 2.2 turbo, red without black interior

Unfortunately it’s not had such a good life as yours hence the last 10 years spent in the garage. He’s hoping it will be back on the road this year

[Rudolph]

Very nice

My father in laws is a red 95 2.2 turbo, red without black interior

Unfortunately it’s not had such a good life as yours hence the last 10 years spent in the garage. He’s hoping it will be back on the road this year

***
@ warpcOil & brix79,
Thank you very much......

@ Secla,
Will cross fingers that he will succeed.....all Lotuses deserve to be driven on the roads.!!

[SeeJay]

I can only echo some of the above comments.. CTEK maintainer

My R3 hibernates November thru' February,and her battery is always in peak condition

[New Duke]

Need to resurrect this thread to ask a question:

I have a 15A smart charger from Feu Vert (with trickle charging as an option) that has an optional ring terminal harness that I can swap in place of the crocodile clips that I would usually use for an emergency charge, and route that harness outside the battery cover.

I can't see any way to attach the negative ring to the chassis. With the length of the harness it looks like both rings are intended to be secured under their matching terminals on the battery. Is that what you guys do? Any problem with attaching both leads directly to the battery terminals instead of negative to the chassis? The instruction manual is light on details.

Battery will be connected to the car while trickle charging, I don't want the fuel trims to reset every time I start the car.

[warpc0il]

Direct to the battery is fine. Does the positive cable have an in-line fuse?

[qwakers]

what he said^^^