Disconnect the Battery while away?

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Originally Posted by mottzone

I've left mine (2011 D4 with traxide kit) for six weeks at a time with no problem. Has always started without difficulty. As the battery is now over three years I now always give it an overnight charge before leaving it for any length of time and I'm more anxious about leaving it.

Does anyone know if leaving a smart charger on for many weeks has any implications for the car's electronics?

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A smart charger or what I call a maintenance charger, if it is a good one, can be left on indefinitely. It can't hurt the cars electronics as its voltage will not exceed alternator voltage.

If it is me, I would leave it on charge whilst away.

As for the above leaving it for six weeks. Your car started, that was good. However at what state of charge was it at? Batteries left for long periods start to sulphate. This is the slow process over the batteries life that causes it to wear out.

By leaving it for long periods I believe will shorten its life.

My motor bike which I purchased new in Aug 08 has a C-tek on it when ever it is parked in my shed. I do not ride it as much as I would like and I can say for sure that it has spent far more time on the charger than on the road.

The battery is now six and a half years old and is still good.

Based on an earlier thread, my Defender, which is resting, is on a 5.0 ctek on a 7 day timer. It gets charged once a week.
Apparently in this scenario a smaller charger is better than larger?
I charge via the crank battery rather than auxiliary, because. ..?

It got moved this week after 2 months, all good.

If it is a C-tek why have you got it on a timer? These things turn themselves off when voltage reaches optimum and when it falls a bit they start again.

It repeats this over and over keeping the battery at its optimum. Good for the battery.

My battery guy says the 5.0 amp ctek is perfect for maintenance of either my van or disco battery setups.

He tried to explain why it is better for maintenance charging but it was over my head so I took him at his word.

My van is in a garage that has occasional outages due to an overly sensitive circuit breaker - reset the breaker and it starts up again no fuss. Imagine it would also restart after a power outage too.

Power outage will not effect a C-tek. It will restart when power is restored.

I have a 7 amp on my caravan which gets used for 4 weeks a year. For the other 48 it has a C-tek on it full time.

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Originally Posted by p38arover

If you are using an automatic charger, get one that will restart after a power outage. I recently found this after returning from 7 weeks overseas. I'd left the Rangie on charge but when I got home the battery was dead flat. There had been a blackout a few days after we left and the charger didn't start up again after power was restored, it sat there in voltage monitor mode.

The battery was so flat that none of my smart chargers would charge the battery, they all indicated the battery was short circuit. I recovered the battery with an old dumb charger and am still using the battery.



One usually removes the ground/earth leads first because, if the spanner contacts the chassis, there won't be short circuit. On any modern car that means removing the negative leads. On older Land Rovers (and most, if not all older British cars), the positive lead was the one that was connected to chassis, i.e., positive earth.

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Hi I think you misunderstood my question

I was wondering if there is any impact on the car by disconnecting the terminals as drive safe mentioned when leaving a car for an extended time


Rich

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AndyG

Based on an earlier thread, my Defender, which is resting, is on a 5.0 ctek on a 7 day timer. It gets charged once a week.
Apparently in this scenario a smaller charger is better than larger?
I charge via the crank battery rather than auxiliary, because. ..?

It got moved this week after 2 months, all good.

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That was what I was thinking of doing

Sounds like a good option instead if leaving charger on all the time

Rich

Disconnecting the battery is not detrimental to the car, but is to the battery as I said earlier.

Each to their own, but IMHO a maintenance charger is the best option.

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Originally Posted by Epic pooh

Personally I leave mine on charge when not using it for more than a couple of weeks (I use a ctek mxs 5.0). That way you're guaranteed to have a fully charged disco on your return.

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X2.

Brett....