I think I should get a battery charger for my Toyota Hiace camper van, but am unsure what sort to get.
I succeeded in flattening the battery last week after taking it out for some exercise. The weather got a bit foggy, so I switched on the foglights, and it seems that I forgot to turn them off when I got out. (The Japanese don't seem to use rear foglights, so my rear fog one was fitted in the UK to allow registration here, because the DVLA won't register the vehicle without them. Unfortunately, as a retro-fit job, it's not linked into the lights-still-on warning system.)
My homestart service got me going again, but since I'm hopefully moving soon to a remote area, I thought that it would be a good idea to get a battery charger of my own.
But when I went shopping, it turns out that choosing a battery charger is not, as I expected, simply a matter of finding a good price on something well-made. There seem to be lots of them for different purposes.
Screwfix has several in its catalogue, but this one url.ie/53mo says it is only for petrol engines up to 1300cc, and url.ie/53mq this one is for petrol enines up to 1800cc. They do have one at url.ie/53ms which states no limits, but it costs over £120. Ouch.
The Hiace has a 3-litre turbo-diesel engine (same engine as a Landcruiser, I'm told), and to start this monster it has two big 12V batteries wired in parallel. However, I don't see why the size of the engine should matter to the charger; I would have thought that lower-amperage charger would just take longer to do the job.
After searching the forum I found some threads on battery chargers which explained that some of the newer chargers have clever circuitry which helps maintain a trickle charge and so on, but I found nothing about this engine size stuff.
Any suggestions on whether I could get something modestly-priced which would allow me to charge up the batteries on this monster engine?
I don't mind if it's a bit slow, but I would like something which I could also use on my car (1800cc Nissan Almera). (BTW, I do have a mains hook-up for the van's leisure battery, but that doesn't charge the engine-battery, so it's a separate issue, and not a problem).
|
Pity you didn't ask a month ago NW, Lidl were doing one of their promotions on smart chargers at a bargain £13.99.
I bought one as a spare/back up for the CTEK 3600 i bought following some very good advice here, the Lidl one seems to be virtually the same as the CTEK (though looks different) having identical lights/switching and both work a treat.
Might be worth a look in at a couple of Lidl's in case they have any left.
Righto, i bought the 3600 (didn't realise just how behind the times i was with my previous stone age charger) because it's capable of charging up to 120AH battery, the beauty of these smart chargers is that you don't need to disconnect the battery and can leave them on for months at a time if you want.
If you go on to CTEK's website it will tell you what capacity battery each model will handle.
I imagine it would be a good idea to disconnect 1 battery from the other and let them have a few days charging individually...no doubt someone will say if thats not a good idea, that will also mean you could use a similar capacity charger to the 3600/Lidl's one whereas if you leave both connected together you may need a larger capacity charger, i seem to remember my twin batteried Landcruiser had 2x75/80AH batteries.
|
|
|
