C Tek Battery Charger conundrum

[Larfin Frog]

Went to start the Vitesse yesterday after a week or so, a little disappointed to find it would only turn very slowly and not fire up . So went to put it on charge . Battery is new, only a couple of months old, and supposedly there is nothing to drain. I have a Ctek MXS5 charger, but rather than go into the normal regime of working through all its cycles till it reaches the maintenance  stage , none of the orange lights came  on, and the green power light began flashing.  I  connected my cheapie Aldi charger and after a couple of hours charging she fired up nicely. I reconnected the ctek . a couple of the orange lights duly illuminated , but when checking half an hour later these were out and the green light was flashing again.  

When I use this charger on my VW camper it works normally going through its stages and then stays in maintenance mode , same size battery. So any idea what is going on please.

[JohnD]

Could it be that it is necessary to RTFM?  

The "green power light".  Is that the Mode button?   You need to press that while you select car/bike and charge or recondition options  before that automatic process starts.

Also, you say "there is nothing to drain", but clearly there is!  A "newish" battery drained after " a week or so" must have a small current leak to be the cause.

John

[Larfin Frog]

The charger doing it's thing on the splitty

[Larfin Frog]

No, this is not the mode button, it is a separate light. Charger is in the correct mode for a 12v car battery, and works normally on the battery in my splitty. I agree there obviously is a ( small) drain, but at the moment I'd just like to work out what is going  with the charger.

The only reference I found to the light flashing on ctek site is it going to power saving mode, if not connected, but this is not the case 

Edited October 20 by Larfin Frog
Adding comment

[dougbgt6]

Do you have a radio? Even when turned off modern radios require power to maintain their settings. I've given up with mine, it degrades the battery within days and flattens within weeks if the cars not used  Now I have a micro amp and connect to a phone ap.

Doug  

[Larfin Frog]

I do have a radio, but then so does the camper. So I don't understand why the charger is working fine in one vehicle and not on the other!

[dougbgt6]

If the Vitesse radio needs power to retain it's settings and the camper radio doesn't, that could it, possibly. The camper battery will be almost fully charged most of the time and the Vitesse battery in constant decline. I have one charger that will charge from stone dead flat and another that won't. The second is more sophisticated but not a lot of use! The Ctek is even more sophisticated, I've got one but I don't like leaving electrical stuff on all the time, which rather defeats the object of the Ctek. 

Doug

[johny]

I wonder if the CTEK is so sophisticated that it wants to run through its charging program but then finds the battery is continually discharging to the radio. Could try it with the battery disconnected from the car?

[Stratton Jimmer]

1 hour ago, johny said:

Could try it with the battery disconnected from the car?

That is what I would do. Had a similar problem with my cheap ALDI charger. Took the battery out and that charger then worked fine. Put the battery back in and the charger has been fine ever since. It was what I would call "a glitch".

[Larfin Frog]

1 hour ago, dougbgt6 said:

If the Vitesse radio needs power to retain it's settings and the camper radio doesn't, that could it, possibly. The camper battery will be almost fully charged most of the time and the Vitesse battery in constant decline. I have one charger that will charge from stone dead flat and another that won't. The second is more sophisticated but not a lot of use! The Ctek is even more sophisticated, I've got one but I don't like leaving electrical stuff on all the time, which rather defeats the object of the Ctek. 

Doug

The camper radio probably causes as much of a drain as that in the Vitesse, it has a clock display which is always on, the Vitesse one does not, and does not need a power supply to retain it's settings. 

[JohnD]

Then it's something else. Start at the battery with a multimeter set to current and follow that until you find the drain.

John 

[johny]

I wonder if the new battery has a fault like an internal short. It charges but cant hold it and the CTEK being a more sophisticated charger is detecting this...

[SpitFire6]

You need to measure the voltage on the battery.

[Unkel Kunkel]

Suggest disconnect the battery from the vehicle and attempt to charge it.

- This eliminates any  ‘parasitic drain ‘ concerns.

- Charge it with an ‘ ordinary ‘ charger first.

- this eliminates  the CTEK ,for now at least.

give it a 24 hour charge 

Disconnect  then leave for a couple of hours to lose the ‘float charge’effect.

Check voltage - if below 12.6V it’s very suspicious that the battery is u/s  

and go from there.

If its OK , try the CTEK

 

btw I wrongly suspected a CTEK charger of failing recently but it turned out to be corroded connector  ( not the battery connectors but  cable connector) 

 

[SpitFire6]

13 minutes ago, Unkel Kunkel said:

Snip 

btw I wrongly suspected a CTEK charger of failing recently but it turned out to be corroded connector  ( not the battery connectors but  cable connector) 

 

 

[Unkel Kunkel]

This connector was the culprit, in my case:

Being outside and getting wet  and resulting corrosion  was the underling cause.

 

 

 

[thescrapman]

On 21/10/2024 at 16:40, Unkel Kunkel said:

This connector was the culprit, in my case:

Being outside and getting wet  and resulting corrosion  was the underling cause.

 

 

 

That’s a much posher version than the clear plastic one they used to use.

Clearly didn’t solve the corrosion issue. My connector melted after a few years and was removed.

[dannyb]

I have adapted mine to plug into the cigarette lighter socket so I don't have to lift the bonnet to clip to battery. I also wrap the cable around the gearlever to remind me to not drive off without unplugging it which I did do once.

Danny

Edited October 25 by dannyb
Grammer

[Colin Lindsay]

1 hour ago, dannyb said:

I have adapted mine to plug into the cigarette lighter socket so I don't have to lift the bonnet to clip to battery. I also wrap the cable around the gearlever to remind me to not drive off without unplugging it which I did do once.

Danny

It's early morning here and only two coffees down but I'm thinking: you plug the CTEK into the cigarette lighter socket to charge the battery, using power that comes from the battery... sort of perpetual motion kind of thing.   Need more coffee, methinks.

[Chris A]

13 minutes ago, Colin Lindsay said:

It's early morning here and only two coffees down but I'm thinking: you plug the CTEK into the cigarette lighter socket to charge the battery, using power that comes from the battery... sort of perpetual motion kind of thing.   Need more coffee, methinks.

Yes you need more coffee, and this time have a sticky bun with it - it doubles the benefit!

[Larfin Frog]

On 21/10/2024 at 16:40, Unkel Kunkel said:

This connector was the culprit, in my case:

Being outside and getting wet  and resulting corrosion  was the underling cause.

 

 

 

So it seems I have the same issue. I was confused by the fact it worked on my other vehicle , with a similar connection. But that certainly seems to be the culprit