Having spent 4 years (in Canada) developing battery chargers and clever charging algorithms, it certainly looks credible in terms of the charge profile (look at the bottom of the datasheet where it says "charging steps&quot. How well they have managed to give it enough intelligence to adequately identify what it is connected to is less obvious. It's notoriously difficult to tailor the charging algorithm to unknown batteries although of course everyone knows that if you could do so, you'd have a very interesting product. That would be the holy grail of the battery charging world and so far nobody has found it despite decades of research and hundreds of patents.

The word "intelligent" used with a battery charger sometimes means little more than not offering the battery endless constant voltage charging. In this case it looks a bit more clever than that but there's only one way to find out as you say. They certainly make a nice brochure, though…..

Murray

It's lawyer speak. I have smart / multistage chargers from Race Tech, Mascot, Optimate, C-Tek and Lidl in use for a decade or more, connected for upwards of 6 months of the year to my fleet when laid up over the 'winter months' I might at some point have read the instructions but regardless I've never disconnected the battery to charge it.

It may not be a name that s in common use with car owners but Oxford Battery chargers are used a lot in the motorcycle world. They do operate on car batteries as well.

Not cheap but I've been happy with mine.

**LINK**

http://www.oxford-shop.co.uk/cat267_1.htm

 

I've had one of these for about six months and find it does everything I need. Mainly for maintaining charge on the campervan while not being used but it will also charge a flat battery quickly, including the 24 V one in my wife's mobility scooter.

**LINK**

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-MF-2C-Full-Automatic-12V-24V-Intelligent-Pulse-Repair-Car-Battery-Charger/112367824695?hash=item1a29a4ef37%3Ag%3AzDUAAOSwSlBYvl6j

Russell

Michael, here in Namibia we can get the CTEK types, and an internally identical charger called 'Pro-User'…(!) made by Precision Enterprise.

**LINK**

I have two of the PSA-004, one on the house alarm battery (a Gel-Cell, 50Ah type) ,and one on my Truck ( a deep discharge 120Ah wet cell type) which does not travel much. A variety of previous chargers destroyed the batteries due to overcharging , even thought they were supposed to be trickle charge capable.

The PSA-004 have been in service for 5 years, and I never had to replace either battery yet.

I do recommend these – perhaps you can dig around there and see if they are available in the UK? Price was very good – a bit more than 1/3 of the equivalent model CTEK.

We do also get the GENIUS ( Your NOCO..) charger, badged as MIDAS, sold here by CYMOT, a camping/car spares/machinery supplier – they also sell the Pro-User, and recommended I do not purchase the GENIUS due to 'reliablity issues'…

Joe

If the Lidl one detects a battery with low voltage, it does some short conditioning charges and measures the voltage rise to decide if its a 6V or 12V battery.

Unfortunately I doesn't go up to 19.2v, which is what I need to try and recover my Sealey impact gun battery.

I'm guessing the best approach will be to open the case and treat it as a 12v + 7.2v in series and cycle it in two parts.

Bill

I agree with Neil. I also use an Imax B6AC Pro, it handles my 5000mA 6S LiPo packs easily (nominally 22.2V) so your 19.2V battery should fit within the specifications.

The fact that it can balance charge/discharge/storage charge these packs is important to me, as well as charging/cycling my lead acid and LiFePo batteries.

Here is a link to the manufacturer's specifications **LINK**

* Danny M *

Just come from Lidl, where their "intelligent" charger is on sale for £13. Says it's for Pb batteries – flooded, VRLA etc and has a microprocessor (corrr!). Certainly it should be better than the old "mains transformer in a box" type and ideally will stop trickle charging after a while – that simply generates gas. Sounds like a reasonable offer – small and compact at a low price. If it's really crap you can take it back.

Yes, it claims to do pulse charging to recover flat overdischarged (>7.5V) batteries. Not sure how this works for 6V batteries, if it needs to see >7.5V? Something has been lost or gained in the translation from Chinese I suspect.

Murray

Edited By Muzzer on 30/01/2018 11:55:39