Trickle charger advice

[Teddyonine]

Hello all- any advice on trickle chargers? I don't " winterize" my Boxster but don't get to drive it much this time of year. Last year the battery totally died (it was old) and I hope to avoid another problem with the new battery. Any thoughts? Thanks!

[Timco]

I would invest in a decent regular charger with a maintainer built in. Then you have cold start, charge, trickle.

[Frodo]

Been using one of these for years. Hook it up and forget it...so far so good.

[Mark_T]

I use the Deltran Battery Tender Plus and Junior. Both have worked really well for several years.

If I might make a suggestion, there is quite a bit of information on this topic in the forum already, and doing a search (see button at top of page) will give you access to this.

[schnellman]

I have used the CTEK shown by FRODO for the past six years with great success. I use the cigarette lighter adapter. Of course, I bought my CTEK from the Porsche dealer, so it says "PORSCHE" on it and works ever so much better than the ones with CTEK on the front. And, it only cost twice as much.

[Slate 01]

Originally Posted by schnellman

I have used the CTEK shown by FRODO for the past six years with great success. I use the cigarette lighter adapter. Of course, I bought my CTEK from the Porsche dealer, so it says "PORSCHE" on it and works ever so much better than the ones with CTEK on the front. And, it only cost twice as much.

This may sound like a dumb question, but my cig lighter never seems to allow the battery to take a charge. I have tried Battery Tender and some other brand trickle chargers thru the cig lighter and the chargers all indicate a flashing error light. Is there some trick to using the the lighter connection, like does the key have to be in the ignition or something?

[schnellman]

Originally Posted by Slate 01

This may sound like a dumb question, but my cig lighter never seems to allow the battery to take a charge. I have tried Battery Tender and some other brand trickle chargers thru the cig lighter and the chargers all indicate a flashing error light. Is there some trick to using the the lighter connection, like does the key have to be in the ignition or something?

I just pull the Boxster in to the garage, turn off and remove the key. Plug the adapter into the cigarette lighter, then plug the maintainer into the wall outlet. I then push the button to move the indicator light on the maintainer to the car icon. I usually get two steady orange lights for a short period, and then I get the green light which periodically goes back to orange for awhile and then back to green.

[jaykay]

Originally Posted by Slate 01

This may sound like a dumb question, but my cig lighter never seems to allow the battery to take a charge. I have tried Battery Tender and some other brand trickle chargers thru the cig lighter and the chargers all indicate a flashing error light. Is there some trick to using the the lighter connection, like does the key have to be in the ignition or something?

Check your cigarette lighter fuse....15 amp I think. If it is gone you get the symptoms you have described

[Slate 01]

Originally Posted by jaykay

Check your cigarette lighter fuse....15 amp I think. If it is gone you get the symptoms you have described

will do, thanks for the insight. Why didn't I think of that, doh!

[Joe B]

MXS 5.0 POLAR

This is what I got because it gets cold here! I found a Battery Tender Junior didn't put out enough juice to keep my Exide Edge AGM battery topped up.

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by Joe B

MXS 5.0 POLAR

This is what I got because it gets cold here! I found a Battery Tender Junior didn't put out enough juice to keep my Exide Edge AGM battery topped up.

That is because all AGM batteries require a different charging profile and final voltage than normal flooded cell batteries.

[Joe B]

Originally Posted by JFP in PA

That is because all AGM batteries require a different charging profile and final voltage than normal flooded cell batteries.

Right. That's why I bought the CTEK charger .

[woodsman]

Originally Posted by JFP in PA

That is because all AGM batteries require a different charging profile and final voltage than normal flooded cell batteries.

so the charger needs a setting for deep cycle/AGM AND wet plate/common batteries...

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by woodsman

so the charger needs a setting for deep cycle/AGM AND wet plate/common batteries...

If the charger has those settings, not all do, just as all do not have a de-sulphation step built into the maintainer programing.

[Joe B]

Originally Posted by woodsman

so the charger needs a setting for deep cycle/AGM AND wet plate/common batteries...

Yes. The CTEK has this.

[mountainman]

I have always had good luck with battery tender brand. I have 3 porsches, a truck, tractor and 2 atvs and I keep one on all of them. I have a 4 station battery tender mounted in the garage with leads hanging from the ceiling and when I pull in I automatically plug into it. These cars have a lot of drain on the electrical system when they sit idle and the tricle charger really prolongs the life of the battery. My tractor battery is over 10 years old and still going strong.

[pjv]

I'm another Ctek fan for a long time, have 3 of them. My Boxster battery is going on 5 years old now, which I am happy with. My Harley battery is 14 years old still in the bike and going strong. I keep both batteries charged using the Ctek Mxs5 on the bike setting and I think this is what makes the batteries last so long.

[woodsman]

I wonder if there's a solar powered charger that's powerful enough to do the job?

I mean where will we all be when the lights go out for good???

[jaykay]

Used one on a sail boat batt. But this was outside....don't think it would cut it on a gel cell.

ctek is the one to get

[BirdDog]

I have a CTEK but it's the Porsche branded (Tequipment) one. Also bought the CTEK rubber cover for it (protects the boxsters paint and the charger from scuffs).

The CTEK branded one has more features and is usually cheaper, but I found a Porsche branded one on ebay for a song and liked that it came wired up for use with a cigarette lighter outlet.

It works perfect and kept my battery in tip top shape last winter.

I should add that if you have a pre-2003 (I think) Boxster and want to use a cigarette lighter charger, you might want to do a cigarette lighter upgrade. Later models have a smaller diameter socket which fits the charger plug a lot better.