Battery conditioners on sale at Lidl (UK)

[Spyder fan]

I have had one of these fitted to my S4 for a couple of years now, excellent quality item that does the same job as the far more expensive products out there. Just ?13.99, on sale this week and they will probably sell out quickly.

Edit: there's a bit of lens flare on the photo above that obscures the voltages, its 6v or 12v and selects automatically. Just hook it up to your battery, scroll through to car symbol and the box does the rest, just leave it connected in the boot ( don't forget to unplug it from the wall before you drive out the garage... been ther )

[RichC]

bargain!

[jeff jackson]

agreed...I bought two a few years back, (keep one as a spare, or just in case freinds want to borrow it) when my very expensive battery conditioner packed in.
so far been very reliable, so can recommend them.
Jeff 72 +2

[Maulden7]

Ditto exactly to what Jeff & Rich posted.

[vxah]

I use Aldi ones which are pretty much the same however, if there is a power cut for a few seconds the unit shuts down! Do the Lidl ones do this?
It's one of two reasons I would not have it running in the boot etc, you won't see that it's not working and something like that could have a "melt down" and I would not want it doing so in the car! I sit it on the floor beside the car!

[john.p.clegg]

Mine's plugged into a socket and fixed next to it on the wall with a long lead into the roof and dangling down by the drivers door,I've fitted a cigar lighter fitting on the end and it's easy-peasy to plug it in when parking...and when you get into the car to drive off you can't forget it...

John

[Maulden7]

The LIDL unit cuts off as soon as the power goes off of course, & does not come back on until the power is restored & the charger is reset manually. This is a "low current" type "intelligent" charger, & if your battery is in decent condition even a relatively extended period without the charger working should not cause a problem for the battery (assuming you don't have any "phantom" electrical drain - but a battery cut off device prevents this anyway)?

I have used this charger successfully on normal sealed lead acid & gel type "racing" batteries (utilising the different settings of course) for some time.

[Spyder fan]

By connected in the boot I meant connected to the battery. The leads to the crocodile clips are long enough to allow the unit to be left on an adjacent shelf or the floor. Yes it does reset if the mains power is lost but that hasn't happened to me and I normally check everything is okay on a regular basis.

[elansprint]

Thanks for the heads up bought 3
Ian

[miked]

Just a word of warning. I am not saying this will happen on this one.

It is worthwhile putting a voltmeter on from time to time to check the charge voltage from the charger when it has settled and perceived full. I always work on what the voltmeter is saying. I have seen quite a number of so-called "fit and forget" chargers actually destroy a battery through over charging. I have seen 14.5 and 15.5 volts. Not a lot realize but when a battery is full and it reaches around 13.75 volts that the current will have fallen to much less than 0.05 amperes (50 mA). In fact some of the checks I have done found actually around 15 - 20 mA and less. It depends upon the size of the battery (AH) and also it age and condition. Having discussed with lead acid battery charger manufacturers (High Quality ones- standby duties) they tend to set float at 13.75 volts for optimum readiness, limitation of gassing and optimum life span. Above this starts to gas more and cause damage.
I prefer to isolate at the battery (no drains) and charge every 6 weeks with my normal float charger, that does actual finish at around 13.75 (Gunsen). Once full I disconnect. This IMO gives more life span.
Works for me, other may disagree.

Mike

[Chancer]

Yesterday I recharged my spare battery that sits in storage all year long, I used my Lidl charger and can see from the date stamp it was bought in 2007, still doing its stuff as it should, the charging voltage was 13.8v on the car setting (there are different ones for motorcycles and AGM batterys) once charged it is now maintaining the charge at 12.8v.

I had some problems with the selector switch like the last time, it was just lack of use, a few good hard pushes (its a tactile membrane switch) and I could hear the action clicking again and all is well I'm glad to say.

[Spyder fan]

Thanks Mike,
There is a constant voltage readout on the Lidl unit. when it gets to capacity and goes into maintenance mode it generally reads 13.7 volts or thereabouts.

My +2 has an annoying current drain from somewhere and I have therefore fitted one of the very simple screw down isolators on the negative battery post. I now do pretty much as you do after using the car and putting it back in the garage, isolate the battery, connect the charger, let it go to capacity overnight and then disconnect ready for next use or 5 or 6 weeks for a top up.

[2cams70]

I bought the Aldi version of this a couple of years ago. Sat on the shelf at home for a year or so before I used it for the first time. Connected a battery plugged it in and heard a loud POP together with lots of white smoke. Opened it up and discovered that the main filter capacitor had exploded. On further inspection I found that all the electrolytic capacitors were cheap Chinese ones with unknown brand names. I therefore replaced all the electrolytic capacitors with high quality Japanese brand ones from RS components and Element 14. The capacitor explosion had also taken out the internal fuse and the main rectifier diodes which had become shorted.

With these components replaced it's now a top quality item and works perfectly! In hindsight I think the sitting on the shelf for a year didn't do it any favours as the capacitors probably became "unformed" during this period. With quality capacitors this shouldn't happen however.

[Elanintheforest]

An old chum has just thrown out 4 of these chargers that he's bought over the past couple of years. He had his house supply trip out two weeks ago, and found that a switch had blown on one of the chargers, which are cheepo Chinese components. Luckily, the power tripped before a fire got going, but the unit had melted around the switch, and it was too hot to touch. He tried the others, and one more was very hot in the same area. Had the unit been in the car / boot, it could have caused a lot of damage, or even set the whole thing on fire.

He's replaced them all with good quality European spec trickle chargers.I guess that you get what you pay for!

[jono]

I've got a Ctek and two Aldi chargers.

Got to say the Aldi ones beat the very expensive Ctek hands down, at least in terms of perceived quality, and I have had no trouble in over 2 years use. They also claim to recover a depleted battery which the Ctek will not

Like all Aldi stuff they're clearly made in China but are TUV approved and guaranteed for 3 years.

Whilst I would love to buy British there's simply nothing out there and faced with ?13 or ?60 (Ctek) it's a no brainer. I would not be at all surprised to find that the Swedish(?) Ctek is crammed with Chinese stuff anyway (what isn't these days?)

Don't you just love Globalisation?

I'll fondly cherish my Arcam hi-fi and old Bradex battery charger as a memory of what used to be!