Lidl are selling battery chargers that are similar to Optimate chargers, but at a fraction of the cost - about £13 Posted Image. It has various modes; 6v,12v ,car and motorcycle as well as maintenance and dead battery recovery functions.from thursday


http://www.lidl.co.u...index_38025.htm

 

Think I'll send the missus up for one of these,back offshore Thursday.
Saying that a 12.45 check in means I could pick one or two up on the way in.

 

link doesn't work, but this does:

http://www.lidl.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/l...ndex_38025.htm

 

May have to try one at that price

 

I'll have 2 of them

 

I've gone one of these, works well for me.

 

Think I might get one, been looking for a charger for a while

 

Aldi did this one recently, and to be honest its brilliant, it automatically switches onto trickle charge. good for cars or bikes.

Used it countless times and well worth the £13 it cost!

 

Looks good for the money

 

Ive got one,(its gray though) works well, small and light enough to fit in the glove compartment too

 

Used to work for them, wouldn't recommend working there but for the price, the goods like this seem very good value. We had very few items of any description returned.

 

Can i leave the car battery in situ still connected and use one of these to charge it. I remember asking an electrically minded friend of mine a few years ago (when i had a normal charger without safety cut offs, trickle maitainer) and he said he wouldn't because if the battery is faulty the current from the mains could fry the ecu etc.

I assumed i could but after reading the intruction manual its says to disconnect it.

So what your opinions

 

Just picked mine up today! Personally I would have thought it would be fine to leave the battery connected, but the manual says to disconnect it so might just be the best thing to do.

 

Good shout, I bought one the other day, seems pretty good and has a 2or3 year guarantee.

 

Think ill pick one of these up on Friday on my lunch hour.

 

That's the one I've got .

 

Bought one of these the other day as it has a low current charge mode for bikes, saves me blowing the tiny battery in my bike (kick start, so only for lights) with the big car charger

 

The 240v ac from the mains is converted to about 12-14v dc and about 4 amps (depends on the charger)

This is the equivelant of a battery (a bit like connecting another battery)- so should be safe to connect without disconnecting the battery,

the battery can act as a "damper" to protect the cars' electronics

a basic charger, without a cutoff, can eventually "boil" a lead acid battery, modern silver calcium batteries (smart; charge) operate/ are safe at higher voltages than "normal" lead-acid, the corresponding circuts on the car must be too

a modern charger charges the car at high (ish) amps (eg- 4 amps) then, when it reaches a pre- selected level, it cuts this right down to "trickle" mode, (a tiny amount of amps), they can also detect faulty batteries and can shut down automatically - this is safe to connect to a battery connected to a car -

It may be in the instructions to dissconnect the battery from the car whn it is being charged - this may be for legal/ health and safety reasons (to cover their backs)

Mechanics connect powerful boosters (many times more powerful than a domestic charger) to car batteries without disconnecting them

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Does anyone know idiot be powerful enough for my 2.8 sierra battery? Cheers

 

You have said £13 posted mate but I can't find anywhere to pay once I've added it to the shopping list? Unless its because I'm on my phone? Cheers

 

Got mine

 

So I went out and bought one of these today after reading this thread, got home, took the flat battery of the cossie, followed all the instructions and it just will not charge.

Plug it in and the standby light comes on.
If I press the mode button once it lights up the 6v light, and again it then flashes the battery charge symbol. According to the instructions this means it's in pulse charge mode to recharge a flat battery (as opposed to a low battery) which is what I want.
However about 2 mins later it goes back to the standby light permanently.
Anyone who has one of these got any ideas? Or is this just my life being typically unlucky again and I've picked up a fucked one?

cheeRS

 

i think these are only a trickle charger .left plugged in all the time while car is parked up / they cut in and out as required .dont think they good enough to charge from flat .

 

@paddy The box and instructions say they are a normal charger too.

@Ran The battery is only a year old. Car jumps ok and takes a charge when running, and battery holds charge well. Problem is I've not been able to get into the garage since early Dec to run her up and keep it charged.

 

The charger may be small/ cheap but its quite sophisticated/ it is "smart" and can detect the level of charge in the battery / a faulty battery

You probably know if you if you let a lead-acid battery go flat its F......inished.

so its probably the battery that is faulty and the charger is doing its job right

 

Yup, a totally dead battery sometimes will not recover.

 

I'm going to use an old style charger tmrw so will see after that if the battery is gone. I'll let you know what happens.

cheeRS

 

im having the same charging issue as cossiedad.

Tried to trickle charge my flat battery to no avail, then put a normal battery charger on it for 2 mins, took it off and put the lidl charger on....now its charging as it should.

does that sound like a knackered battery

 

I plugged an old style charger in and connected the battery. Instantly charging! Swapped back to the Lidl one after a couple of hours and it showed as charging. Came back to it in the morning and it was supposedly still charging. Battery however was still too flat to turn a car over.
Ended up jumping the car and I left it running for an hour or so while I washed the car. Checked battery afterwards and it has taken charge while on the car. Went back to it today and still showing 12.37v on multimeter. Turned cossie over straight away too.

So my conclusion is that my battery is ok but just needed a charge. The Lidl charger tho is going back to them as faulty tmrw.

cheeRS

 

To the non charger posts, this unit detects low volts and won't start charging below a certain level, you need to connect a 12v battery to it via leads etc to start the charger(fool the unit

Try it...

 

The instruction booklet does say that under 10.5v it will pulse charge, as opposed to straight trickle charge. And under 7.5v it wont charge at all.

Kind of defeats the point of a battery charger imo, as you primarily would require it when yr battery is flat! lol

But the one I bought was clearly faulty as even when given a few hrs kick start with an old style charger it still failed to charge the battery overnight despite saying it was.

Oh well, live and learn.

cheeRS

 

there are chargers (optimate, ctek) that will recover even the deadest of batteries

they arent £13 though and arent on sale in lidl

might invest in one soon

 

Not my bosh

 

Got one of these last week and for that kind of money its a bargin!

 

I think the only reason chargers say up to a certain engine capacity and fuel type is generally because the bigger the engine the bigger the battery, and this means the charger has a higher output.

Nevertheless, a charger will still charge any capacity of the same type of battery, it's kind of flawed as well, as some models have the same battery across several if not all engine sizes, for example I know a Cosworth has the same type as a lesser model, yours is most likely the same as well.

Martin

 

Tescos do a basic one for £4 - works fine