Trickle charger without a Mains supply

[Zep]

Don’t get a leisure battery. They are designed for lower load, long discharge. They don’t like high current (starting the car).

In terms of capacity, for the same dimensions as the starter battery, the capacity of a leisure battery is about the same (C20 = 100ah) but the CCA is lower 700ish amps, vs 900 for a EA1000. So this means, with a low load, the parasitic drain you are concerned about and want a battery maintainer for, the battery will last pretty much exactly the same amount of time as the capacity is the same, but won’t be as good for starting and will degrade with regular starts as the plates aren’t designed for rapid conversion. If you go for a start with a leisure battery with low volts, the current will be even higher, so will stress it even more.

Don’t get too hung up on always having a charger connected. A couple of weeks without a maintainer would be absolutely fine. If longer than that consider disconnecting the battery, which will prevent any discharge. With a GT there is a manual boot release which means you don’t need to worry about unlocking. Final option is to run the charger out to the car for a few hours or use the Ctek you have above on an occasional basis.

Batteries don’t mind cycling, you will get about 1000 cycles from a VRLA providing you don’t let the voltage drop below the minimum final voltage, about 1.75v per cell, so 10.5v for a car battery.

 

[philw696]

In the good old days we could just give the car a good old push start.
Did it recently with my neighbors Renault 16 when road testing it after doing the brakes.
Nipped up to the bar restaurant had a coffee came out and no starter motor.
He gets in ignition on second gear and I push voila were going.
Back in the workshop dodgy solenoid wire.

 

[CatmanV2]

Don’t get a leisure battery. They are designed for lower load, long discharge. They don’t like high current (starting the car).

I think the idea is to run the C-Tek from the leisure battery, to keep the car battery on maintenance, as it were

C

 

[Zep]

I think the idea is to run the C-Tek from the leisure battery, to keep the car battery on maintenance, as it were

C

Fair enough. That being the case, it’s not clear to me what the Ctek is bringing to the party. If the concern is that the drain on the battery will make it go flat, just connect the extra battery in parallel and double the amount of time it will take to go flat.

It all seems like quite a lot of work to me, when there are other ways of managing it. This is a good use of that Bluetooth battery monitor that was posted the other day for example.