CTEK MXS 5.0 £54 AMAZON (Today only)

[Darkangelv2]

Hi All

With a lot of cars in Winter Hibernation, battery conditioning is worth considering. These come highly rated.

CTEK MXS 5.0 is on a Black Friday deal TODAY ONLY.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/CTEK-MXS-5...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=YT9ST5HE37SPYJRKNJF4

This is the cheapest it's been since 2015 according to Camelcamelcamel

 

[85genius]

Still expensive, basically the same as the Lidl/aldi one but without the full LCD display and 4 x the price

Or am I missing something?

 

[Darkangelv2]

Still expensive, basically the same as the Lidl/aldi one but without the full LCD display and 4 x the price

Or am I missing something?

This shouldn't be considered a simple trickle charger (apparently) - it carries out dynamic reconditioning (responding to the demand received from the battery itself) and charges differently to cope with AGM batteries too.

The Aldi one has preset programs that it follows to recon a battery that it plays out rather than responding to the battery.

As i say, it comes highly rated but won't be for everyone.

 

[ph001]

Link to the lidl / aldi one??

Coming from an electronics engineer I can confirm the MXS 5.0 is properly designed and rated. Most of the Chinese ones are complete tosh (trust me, I've been inside most of them).

 

[85genius]

Link to the lidl / aldi one??

Coming from an electronics engineer I can confirm the MXS 5.0 is properly designed and rated. Most of the Chinese ones are complete tosh (trust me, I've been inside most of them).

https://www.aldi.co.uk/autoxs-car-battery-charger/p/095402169939100

http://www.lidl-service.com/cps/rde/SID-A231F5B0-2B7973A7/lsp/hs.xsl/product.html?id=101241509&rdeLocaleAttr=en&title=CAR%20BATTERY%20CHARGER%20ULGD%203.8%20A1

 

[85genius]

Still expensive, basically the same as the Lidl/aldi one but without the full LCD display and 4 x the price

Or am I missing something?

This shouldn't be considered a simple trickle charger (apparently) - it carries out dynamic reconditioning (responding to the demand received from the battery itself) and charges differently to cope with AGM batteries too.

The Aldi one has preset programs that it follows to recon a battery that it plays out rather than responding to the battery.

As i say, it comes highly rated but won't be for everyone.

I didn't realise there were multiple programmes vs single clearly that one is more advanced, just looked less so with the lack of LCD display, that said I'm very happy with my aldi one and at the £12.99 I paid would recommend to anyone

 

[ph001]

The Aldi/Lidl one is only 3.8A too whereas the Ctek is 5A. The Ctek also has AGM charging and auto battery temperature compensation, de-sulfation etc. Have to say though for £12.99, the Aldi one does look pretty impressive value.

Where these cheap chargers seem to fall down is being able to recharge a really flat battery. The majority need to be able to see >7.5V on the battery to begin the charge process. Can't say for sure if that's the case for the Aldi one as I haven't tested but it certainly is for all the other Chinese ones I've ever come across.

 

[ph001]

Just researching the Aldi one a bit more on the web. Negatives seem to be:

1) Manual states you must disconnect battery from vehicle before charging. :thumbsdown:
2) Won't charge a very flat battery (as per my suspicions above)
3) If the mains has a power cut or slight blip, it restarts in standby mode and won't trickle charge.

All these issues seem to common to the Chinese ones. I still think it's good value at the money but the Ctek has all these issues addressed which is why I ended up buying one (after wasting about the same again on loads of other cheap ones)!

Source:
http://autoshite.com/topic/23065-lidl-car-stuff/
http://totalcarlton.com/forums/index.php?topic=15348.0
https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/car-battery-charger-1399-lidl-from-17th-january-1441348

 

[GuidoK]

^The aldi/lidl chargers also feature a desulphation stage and (the lidl one at least) has a mode you can choose for agm/cold enviroment charging.

The aldi/lidl chargers cant charge below 7,5v because they can also charge 6v batteries, so they need that really low voltage range to detect 6v batteries. One can wonder if recharging a 12v battery with terminal voltage that low has any sense because a battery wont ever recover to a healthy state from such a deep discharge.
Having a 6v charger is very handy if you have things like classic motorcycles (motorcycles are in itself obviously a big market for trickle chargers; they're mostly parked inside and are driven a small part of the year)
I wonder if there's any difference between the lidl and aldi charger, I can't find the aldi's manual.

The ctek chargers have of course a lot of accesories available being an A brand.
The Ctek for example comes with leads that have a connector that you can permanently mount in your car, so you can easily plug it in etc.

 

[Darkangelv2]

The ctek chargers have of course a lot of accesories available being an A brand.
The Ctek for example comes with leads that have a connector that you can permanently mount in your car, so you can easily plug it in etc.

That was the bit that sold it to me in the end. Just really neat and simple.