When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Whats a good way to keep my battery all charged up throughout the winter? It gets pretty harsh during the winter here and i just dont want to wake up to a dead battery one morning
From: Currently somewhere in IL,IN,KY,TN,MO,AR,MS,AL, or FL
Originally Posted by donwil
You want a charger not a tender. There is a difference as I recently found out. I went with the CTEK 3300. Waiting for it to arrive.
Uh, no. The other way around. You want a tender/maintainer and NOT a charger. A charger will "boil" the electrolyte if left on too long. All tender/maintainers are designed to keep the voltage low enough so that that doesn't occur and they can be left on indefinitely. The CTEK is a tender, not a charger. My preference is the Battery Tender Jr. because it is the slowest I've found meaning it does the least damage to the battery getting back to a full charge before doing it's maintenance thing.
Thank you everyone for your input! As winter creeps up, I can tell that my battery is very slowly but surely getting weak as the temps begin to consistently stay below 30 degrees
Used a Battery Tender on my '84 for 18 years with no problem.
It's now connected to the 2013 for a little sleep. The 2013 will roll out when we get any cold but sunny and dry days, it's too bad *** to let sleep all winter.
From what little I know about it, the actual term is "maintainer" and not a charger per se. A charger usually rapid-charges (altho there are slow chargers, but most don't shut off). You DO want a maintainer. And just know that for most of the newer models regardless of make, the more you use it (such as during even summer), the more your battery is maintained.
We've had one poster in other threads who found several of his at Harbor Freight for around $10, and the $20 alternative above is surely a good one as well. Right now Costco has the full-on Battery Tender Plus for $40 and will drop it to $30 over Thanksgiving weekend (11/28-30), I think it is. I do like the thinking tho of Ft. Morgan AL and had never considered that before: the slower the charge, the better for the battery.
The Harbor freight tender maintenance voltage is too high (will boil the battery at some point). If you want to change a resistor on the board to drop the voltage down to around 13.8V instead, then will work for long term storage.
Up the list, Black and Decker unit is not that bad, and can be had for around $20 at wall-mart or home depot.
Note, above two are for lead cell wet acid batteries, and not for AGM batteries.
The Ctek 3300 has a battery desulfate cycle that it goes into once it has the battery topped off, and actual reconditions the battery (pulls the sulfur build up off the plates to get longer life out of the battery). Also, it has a setting for AGM batteries to correctly maintain them.
yep, battery tender
Battery Question
