Started a new thread despite the dozens of battery and ctek threads as the last time I necroed an old thread the mods split it all up and created a new thread. So here goes, this by way of explanation if anybody says we've discussed this a zillion times.

Christmas present. MX5.

Also got the comfort connect extension lead and the lighter plug adapter with comfort indicator.

So amongst all the vehicles where the battery got a seeing to I stuck the lighter plug in the socket in the boot of my FL2 (10 plate, 50k miles) and set it to recondition the battery. When first put it in light flashing red, ie <80% charge now!!

It went through the first desulphation stage in seconds, up through the soft start even quicker and onto the bulk steady state charge constant current section 3 faster than I can write this post.

It wasn't long on the bulk charge and went onto stage 4 where it takes the battery up to "100%-ish" charge. So I went inside and left it to it. (Yes I know that batteries 3 and a bit year old aren't going to be capable of being charged 100%. Just saying.)

Went out after about 4 hours and it had gone through all the rest of stages 4, 5, and 6 the recondition stage and was now sitting on stage 7 the long term keeping it topped up as needed stage.

Anyway disconnected it all and put it away. Went back to vehicle to get the final thing, the lighter adapter,, and it was now flashing red, ie battery below 80% charge.

Yet it never fails to start and turns over like a good un. Even on below zero mornings. First time every time even if vehicle has been stood for best part of a week. (touches wood) End of a long trip yesterday, about 300 miles, but lights and wipers on all way, stuck the indicator in. Flashing green, and in less than a minute, orange and then red.

If people want to know static and on charge voltages I can get an estimate of those from an old analogue GPO multimeter if that would help.

Wondered what your thoughts were.

Sorry, wrong forum I guess, must have been reading a battery charging thread in here. Please move it mods. Apologies.

Sounds interesting...... Link?

I had one of those traffic light socets fitted to my FL2 and it always showed low ie red, so fitted the standard socket.
Charger only goes to stage 8 after 10 days but stage 7 is 100% charge.

Richard FL2 07 TD4 GS Auto
Ex 02 TD4 Auto

Have you tried it plugged into the rearmost of the two centre console sockets?

Maybe it's to do with voltage drop over the length of cable from the battery.

Personally, I always try to get the charger as near to the battery as possible to reduce any possible voltage drop as at 12 volts that can sometimes be quite significant over distance.  MY2014 SD4 XS
Ipanema Sand

MY10 TD4-e GS Manual
Lago Grey Now retired after 8 trouble free years

mine was connected at the battery and still showed low

Richard FL2 07 TD4 GS Auto
Ex 02 TD4 Auto

I believe you forget something...
The car enters sleep/standby after several minutes. During that time, any current draw from car's ECUs makes the voltage across battery terminals drop a little and the battery looks discharged.
The comfort leds are indicating the followings:
Green: over 12.60 V
Yellow: 12.40 - 12.60 V
Red: below 12.40 V.
So, leave the car, lock it with the key, leave it more than 30 minutes in order to fully enter sleep and the current draw to be minimal and only THEN look at the comfort indicator.
And when the standby/sleep current draw is only 20-30 mA, no matter where (which socket) you put the comfort indicator, the current draw is too small to generate any substantial voltage drop across the wires.

I am referring to these indicators:


Last edited by alex_pescaru on 2nd Jan 2014 5:59 pm. Edited 1 time in total

You also ideally need to leave it connected for 24/36 hours for it to do its full work.

I have one on my lotus, and during that inital period despite reaching the last stage, it goes through various checks (going back to previous stages) and then settles down. Freelander 2 HSE Lux SD4 - Sumatra Black

Thanks for the comments and thoughts.

Alex is correct in that leaving it and going back after time changes things.

I will also try the leaving the charger on for 24 hours plus and report back.

It made no difference between luggage compartment socket and rearmost socket between seats btw.

Someone asked for a link.

Charger http://www.amazon.co.uk/CTEK-Battery-autom...words=ctek
Extension Lead http://www.amazon.co.uk/C-Tek-Comfort-Conn...sim_auto_1
Lighter plug with Battery state indicator http://www.amazon.co.uk/CTEK-56-870-Comfor...+indicator

Just to close this out.

The FL2 sat without moving from Monday night until the weekend. On opening using central locking and with the door open the status lights went green > red.

After shutting it up again without starting and locking it again with the central locking, then lights went red > amber > green over abut two minutes.

After a couple of local runs, about ten miles. Pull into the drive, switch off, lock up, the light now changes briefly from green to amber and back to green within seconds of central locking it.

I suspect that the thing which caused the voltage drop previously and which needed time to recover was interior lighting having had tailgate and doors pen for a fair while unloading.

Not had chance to try the 3 hour charge yet, but certainly using this Ctek charger has improved the way it turns over first thing.

alex_pescaru wrote:

I believe you forget something...
The car enters sleep/standby after several minutes. During that time, any current draw from car's ECUs makes the voltage across battery terminals drop a little and the battery looks discharged.
The comfort leds are indicating the followings:
Green: over 12.60 V
Yellow: 12.40 - 12.60 V
Red: below 12.40 V.
So, leave the car, lock it with the key, leave it more than 30 minutes in order to fully enter sleep and the current draw to be minimal and only THEN look at the comfort indicator.
And when the standby/sleep current draw is only 20-30 mA, no matter where (which socket) you put the comfort indicator, the current draw is too small to generate any substantial voltage drop across the wires.

I am referring to these indicators:

Hi DirtyDuck, Are you saying the C TEK are a waste of time or just the indicator part as I was looking at getting one after having my fingers burnt with last FL2 ?

If the C TEK are worth having which type would I need for my car as there seems lots of types out there  If it wasn't so bad it'd be funny.

🐑
Freelander 2 HSE auto 2014 ( Florrie ) ..... Try again.
Freelander 2 GS 2012...... Gone.

CTEK chargers are good, but there are two cautionary points

1 - the "comfort" indicators are pointless and likely to lead you to worry about the battery when you should not (ironically providing no comfort at all). They are accurate per se (against their set voltage thresholds), but unlikely to show genuine float level charge due to current drain when you unlock the car, so incorrectly indicate a lower state of charge than is really the case. Even with a brand new battery fully charged, I rarely see anything better than amber unless the charger is on the battery and often see red. If you get one because the bulk head fitting is convenient (which it is), you'd be better off taping over the LED's!

2) - The AGM setting can be used with the reconditioning mode as well, but I do not believe that is a safe or sensible thing to do - AGM batteries don't need this AND worse wont like it. Only charge an AGM battery on the AGM only setting. CTEK should not allow this combination of settings, IMO.

These two provisos aside, they are great. The sweet spot for value is CTEK MXS 5.0 - it has all the feastures and a charge rate of 5A is enough overnight for anything other than a really low battery. The MXS10 will just charge twice as fast, but costs twice as much. Unless you have a large leisure battery you regularly discharge heavily, the MXS10 is most likely a waste of money over the MXS5.0 In my opinion of course.

From my understanding, only very late model FL2 have AGM - ours is March 14 and does NOT have AGM. It should say AGM on the battery if it is.

If you have a standard flooded battery, the advice is to use the recon mode once a year. What it does it stir up the acid and break down crystals that may form from short charge cycles. But repeated use can cause loss of acid as it causes deliberate gassing.

Just to be clear on current ratings if it's not clear - CTEK 5 Amps is a genuine sustained 5A for most of the charge time. Old style chargers (which should be few and far between now, but you may have one in your garage) start off with a much higher current (their advertised rate) but then fall quickly to a much lower current so may take much longer to charge beyond 80% charge even though their "badge current" is higher. They also then do not switch back to a trickle charge so cannot be left on all the time. You can safely leave a CTEK charger on all the time if the car is off the road for any reason.

Jules,

BTW check the charge voltage on your car - ours is 14.9V which is too high for either AGM or flooded cell. We have battery issues as it won't hold volts for very long. It was like this when we collected it from the local LR dealer 2 weeks ago and is going back to be checked. I have no idea if this voltage is normal for an FL2, but from all my knowledge, flooded should be charged at 14.4V max and AGM 14.7V max, so IMO, this is just plain wrong.

Be interested to know what volts others are getting.

Well, many thanks for taking the time to type all that out and things a lot clearer now.
Just want something to store under the boot shelf...... Just in case, as every time I get in car the display says

Low battery
Start engine or system
will shut down in
3 Seconds

and that's even after I drove from here (west Wales) to Oxford !!!! although it starts ok every time ??????? If it wasn't so bad it'd be funny.

🐑
Freelander 2 HSE auto 2014 ( Florrie ) ..... Try again.
Freelander 2 GS 2012...... Gone.