Aldi battery charger

[peterekins]

Simple realy, anyone tried it and are they anygood. Does it have a trickle charger?

[pieterv]

Don't know about the Aldi one, but the one from Lidl which comes up periodically does.

[Q plate]

I bought one from Aldi last year auto xs? If I remember ideal for trickle charging or topping up. You can't charge from flat its not designed for that so its not a 'one charger does all' but for battery monitoring/trickle charging I have no issues especially at the price

[andymac]

great for the price , & also 6 & 12v

[dodursley]

I have a Lidl one pleased with it, use it 6 & 12v bike & car

[Ginger]

I have bought on in the last couple of weeks. £13!! It does bikes and cars.

I use optimate on my bikes but had to buy a new battery for the RS250 and it needed a first charge. This Lidl charger was great.

My battery on my X5 (which has to turn over a 3 litre diesel lump) is dying in this cold weather but I want to eek a bit more life out of it......enter stage left the £13 Lidl charger!

A lad across the road from me who has a number of show cars also bought a couple and he swears by his.

For £13, you can't go wrong.

[fullerton]

I have bought on in the last couple of weeks. £13!! It does bikes and cars.

I use optimate on my bikes but had to buy a new battery for the RS250 and it needed a first charge. This Lidl charger was great.

My battery on my X5 (which has to turn over a 3 litre diesel lump) is dying in this cold weather but I want to eek a bit more life out of it......enter stage left the £13 Lidl charger!

A lad across the road from me who has a number of show cars also bought a couple and he swears by his.
For £13, you can't go wrong.

Gents you get what you pay for, charging from various degrees of depletion needs to be regulated carefully, especially when it get close to completion. Also quick charging rates induce heat which is not good.

My missus just bought be a do it all iphone, apple net book charger for £6 from the local garage, guess where that went.

Steve

[Angel]

If you are using a trickle charger, consider sticking it on a timer or turning it off for a day once a week.
Battery Sulfation kills batteries. Leaving a slightly discharged battery on a trickle for weeks at a time will pretty much guarantee a dead battery.
As a bike dealer I sell loads of new batteries to people every spring, and they nearly always say they thought it would be OK as it was on a trickle charger.
You will know you have killed it when it measures 12.5 or above with no load and drops to 7 or 8 the second load is applied. If it drops slowly it just needs charging, if it drops in a second as soon as you hit the starter, the trickle charger killed it.
They can still sometimes be recovered, but you do this at your own risk.
Charge hard so you can hear them bubbling.
Turn charger off.
Apply a decent load, (I use a couple of 55 watt lights)
Charge hard again, repeat every day for a week.
If the top comes off check liquid level often and top up with distilled water only.

Smart chargers like optimates are supposed to cycle the battery, but my experience is that they don't do a very good job.

[-Ralph-]

Its a re-badged C-TEK charger which when it used to be sold by them cost 50 quid. Its a good bit of kit from a top manufacturer of automotive battery chargers. Just buy one.

[Foggy50361]

The problem with the Aldi and Lidl chargers is they are trickle chargers, and as such charge a battery at or around 14.3ish volts and as already commented will with prolonged operation destroy a lead acid battery. What is required is a charger with 2 modes, trickle (14.3V ish) for charging then when the battery is fully charged a float mode (13.6V ish) I've got the Lidl one and use it if I need to charge a battery overnight, but I have this.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/12v-sealed-le ... 15ah-jc87u

Connected to my car, and when the car is in the garage it keeps the battery in tip top condition ready for when I need it, and no it hasnt had any noticeable effect yet on battery efficiency, and it's been connected on and off for othe last 6 years for periods of months during the winter