Smart battery charger

In peak condition

MEASURED AGAINST the R1 400 cost of replacing a battery in a colleague’s stranded car – including the callout fee to the battery centre – the cost of maintaining battery health using an external device starts to make sense. Particularly when the battery is intermittently or inadequately charged.

The Swedish-developed Ctek battery maintenance system provides a convenient means of checking on your battery’s health and, where necessary, restoring it to good health.

Ctek’s Bluetooth-enabled Battery Sense works in conjunction with a free iphone or Android app and allows multiple batteries to be monitored simultaneously. That’s particularly useful for seldom used batteries such as those on motorbikes, jet skis and ski-boats. It syncs automatically to your mobile phone via Bluetooth.

According to the local distributors Charging Systems Africa, push notification is sent if the battery’s state of charge falls to a critical level or if measurements have not been taken for seven days.

An even easier option is the plug-in Comfort Indicator. Push it into your cigarette lighter or 12 V supply socket to display charge state via a three-led arrangement.

If all this monitoring suggests that you need the battery equivalent of emergency life support, the MXS 5.0 represents a significant advance on old-fashioned dumb trickle chargers. Comprehensive, clear instructions explain how to set up and use the supplied kit, consisting of a smart unit with dedicated mains connector, terminated with a two-pin Schuko plug. The main unit appears neatly built and has two eyes for securing to a firm base. On the charger housing, an eight-step graphic with inlaid LEDS makes it easy to see the battery’s state of charge at a glance.

You begin by hooking up the charger to the battery using the supplied clamps. When you connect it to the wall socket, the LED display indicates charging status (or, if you’ve connected Pos to Neg by mistake, an error warning; fortunately, the device is protected against reverse polarity).

Pressing the Mode button selects charge options, including a separate programme for small batteries such as those found on motorcycles and a setting for the AGM (absorbed glass mat) designs used in vehicles with Stop- Start technology. There’s also a recondition option, recommended once a year after a deep discharge.

The processes involved start with desulphation with an input of 15,8 volts. This is followed by a “soft start” testing regimen to ensure that the battery is not defective and involves a 5-amp cycle of up to 8 hours until 12,6 volts. This ramps up to 14,4 volts for up to 20 hours. At this point, the indicated Level 4, which equates to 80 per cent of charge, the battery is ready to start the vehicle. (As a guide, getting to that point on a 110 Ah battery will take 26 hours.)

Additional features include a reconditioning programme and two levels for maintaining charge: float (constant) or pulsed. To avoid overheating, built-in charge voltage compensation is based on ambient temperature.