What 240 Volt 4WD Battery Charger Recommendations?

**Bytemrk** · 11th August 2014, 09:17 PM

Another Vote for Ctek..

I've got an older 7 amp unit MXS 7000 its great ( now renames MSX 7.0) - far batter than the many cheapies I had over the years.

http://www.cteknz.co.nz/tabid/319/Ca...2/Default.aspx

**spudboy** · 11th August 2014, 10:36 PM

I've got both CTEK and Projecta chargers. They are both good.

The only bad thing I've got to say about the Projecta is that it will NOT start charging if the battery voltage is below 6v. It triggers a fault. I had a trashed battery that it wouldn't touch. Put the CTEK on it for a few hours, and then I could use the Projecta on it once the voltage was up a bit.

Projecta has better feedback as to the volts/amps/battery type it is charging.

**CraigE** · 12th August 2014, 10:39 AM

Originally Posted by BadCo.

Is this the one you speak highly of?

CTEK Smart Switch Mode Battery Chargers

Yep that is the one I have. It depends what you want. I bought this one as I want to be able to charge bike batteries as well and 5 amp is recommended for this but will still do car / 4x4 batteries. If you only want to do car / 4x4 / truck then 10amp or 15 amp may be better, however they also cost a lot more.

**drivesafe** · 12th August 2014, 12:27 PM

Hi Lionel and for what you are planning on using the battery charger for, any cheap multi stage battery charger will easily meat your needs and most have a float mode, which is a form of trickle charging.

A small charger, say no more than 5 amps, will do a better job of charging and maintaining your batteries than a high current charger will, and the smaller ones are a lot cheaper.

**FeatherWeightDriver** · 12th August 2014, 04:05 PM

Originally Posted by drivesafe

A small charger, say no more than 5 amps, will do a better job of charging and maintaining your batteries than a high current charger will, and the smaller ones are a lot cheaper.

Interesting...

Does that mean when I use my 15A maximum rate adjustable charger on a car battery I should set it to charge at 5A max?

What's the downside of the higher charge rate?

**drivesafe** · 12th August 2014, 06:23 PM

Hi FWD, charging batteries is just like discharging them.

The higher the current the harder it is on the battery.

When you are charging a battery while driving, it’s a trade-off between how quickly you can charge the battery in the time you are driving and being hard on the battery is the trade-off for the short charge time available.

With charging a battery using a battery charger, because you “USUALLY” have plenty of time to do it, you will be doing your battery a big favour if you use a low current to charge the battery, no matter how low the battery is when you start the charging cycle.

I sell chargers with up to 60 amp charging capacity and unless it is intended for charging either a large lead acid battery bank or for charging lithium batteries, I know of only one situation where a large battery charger should be used for charging small battery setups.

These chargers can be set 100%, 75%, 50% and 25% charging rates and if someone is going to be using a generator to charge their batteries at unpowered sites on a regular basis, then the 60 amp charger is good if you have two or more large batteries to be charged by the generator.

The large charger allows for shorter running time of the generator.

BUT, when on mains power, which would normally mean plenty of time to charge the battery, I always recommend the charger be set to 25% ( 15 amp ) so as to be kind to the batteries.

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