Battery Maintenance

Having researched previous threads already. Anyone advise me the best Battery conditioner for my 996 from CTEK's latest range? Would it be the MXS 5.0? And as a matter of interest, which type is the Porsche Charge - O - Mat? Is this basically the CTEK MXS 5.0? Thanks all :thumb:

CTek 3.8 or 5.0 are both excellent. The Porsche item is a base level CTek, both the 3.8 & 5.0 are superior

Okay thanks bud :thumb:

The ctek msx5 user manual is available here https://www.ctek.com/storage/ma/b34...BAA0D1377C3DAB44E229/MXS_5.0-manual-UK-EN.pdf It gives a description of the various modes & charging stages available. Cheers,

I use a CTEK MXS 5.0 with the cigarette lighter adaptor. Works brilliantly, and zero faff to keep the car on tender for long periods. I think it's only the 996.2 which has a live cigarette lighter though - if you've got a 996.1 you'll need to actually connect to the battery or run a comfort adaptor out to the frunk so you can drop the CTEK in there.

I have a Ctek MXS 5.0 - I really rate it. The battery recond (recondition) mode has worked well on a leisure battery (saving me about £100 on a new one). I love all the Ctek connectors you can get, that makes it really easy to plumb connectors permanently into several cars and then, connect any of them up in seconds. The Ctek connectors I use have a RAG traffic light, showing the charge of the battery. Probably obvious, but worth shopping around, I saw a £30 price differential on this charger (think I paid around £55).

Cheers guys. I had my eye on an MXS 5.0 so it's good to get some feedback and yes mines a 996.2 so the lighter socket should be live then. I'll get me one asap as my nearly new battery lost its charge due to lack of use and I had to recharge using my old skool battery charger. Seems fine now after about 18 hours.. was a bit reluctant to leave on overnight

CTEK 3.8 works fine for me :thumb:

I have a ctek too, but I found on occasion when I had left it unplugged and or managed to leave lights on some such so I had a dead battery in any Of The cars it then took a seriously long time to recharge the battery to the point of use, like 24hrs+, no good if you wanted to use the car that day. I took a punt on one of these, http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/252975353485 Which totally blew the ctek out Of The water for performance and was good to go usually in a couple of hours or less which for under 15 quid is pretty good

Ctek is not a battery charger per say, its a battery conditioner. If you have a totally flat battery you would need an out and out charger.

As Crash says - the Ctek is a conditioner, that will charge but doesnt put out the high-current of the charger you mention (which puts out 10A, so will charge twice as quick as my 5A Ctek charger). However the CTEK also adjusts the voltage and current during a charge, to optimise the battery, which I suspect the charger you linked to doesnt (I guess it will just pump out as much current as it can and may fry your battery in the process). As I go camping (some say glamping), I have had to do loads of reading on chargers and conditioners, as leisure batteries are seriously expensive. The general consensus in the camping fraternity is go for Ctek or better..... Its horses for courses, I also have traditional battery chargers, but its a rare occasion where I would reach for one now....

I bought the CTEK MXS 10 as it can condition but also puts out up to 10amps.

Err, no... it's a smart charger with multiple phases and yes it adjusts voltage and current during the charge process then has a maintainance program when it's done, all microprocessor controlled so it's it's doing the same job as a ctek just has the 10a grunt to do it much quicker just like the big boy cteks.

Fair enough - based on the scant ebay description it was hard to tell. Just done a quick google and it says 3 mode - but the specs then state its 12v, so am unclear what the voltage range actually is for this charger. As you suggest, it may be identical to the CTEK 10amp charger....either way you are braver than me, I wouldnt risk leaving it unattended with my leisure batteries connected to it, or my car....thats possibly me being overly cautious

No, you are dead right there, the minimal description leaves many questions hence taking a punt on it and trying it out on a surplus dead battery not in a car first watching from a safe distance!!