How important is CTEK Stage 7

[JT20]

To a battery and its full life. I believe it is supposed to hold a steady charge of 13.6V and only initiate "pulse charging" if it drops below that..

My car passed inspection recently and has many thousands of miles on it since it sat etc, so everything with it should be fine now. I am pondering just how much a battery remaining on CTEK Stage 7 will benefit.

They do say it is ready at Stage 4.

 

[HangFire]

Who is "They" and what do "They" base that statement on... a CTek charger? Yours or theirs?

Are you storing the vehicle? Or leaving it on a CTEK charger when not in use?

What is the problem or goal here? Is there some past history with this battery not in your post?

 

[JT20]

Who is "They" and what do "They" base that statement on... a CTek charger? Yours or theirs?

Are you storing the vehicle? Or leaving it on a CTEK charger when not in use?

What is the problem or goal here? Is there some past history with this battery not in your post?

They is CTEK. Says on the box battery can be used at Stage 4.

Am not storing it.. anymore. WAS stored.. outside.

Problem/past history is in this post https://bobistheoilguy.com/forums/t...ith-ctek-stage-6-or-does-that-help-it.333897/
Goal is simply optimal battery health, give non-use and sitting outside (in a vehicle, connected) for about 5 months. Maybe ran a little bit and maybe not. Started weakly when I got it but did start.

Just have it in garage for a night or two before used for work, it is back in regular service and OCDing over its condition. Tripped Stage 4 at 14.16V just now.

 

[Pelican]

I would imagine that at stage 4 the battery CAN be used if one has no time for the other stages, but that it would be desirable and beneficial to the battery to allow all the stages to run their course.

 

[JHZR2]

Define stage 7. Is this a high voltage equalization charge?

 

[40w8]

On my BMW X1, I don't have electricity for car, so when at friends, I charge for a few hours with Ctek 5.0. I don't think anything past stage 3 is necessary for my use. I just need to get some extra charge occasionally.

The Ctek is kinda slow, and I also use my BMK AGM charger at 8amp AGM, and when it starts showing 100% and 14.8 volts, I know it's time to stop. I don't think any recon is good for AGM battery, and neither is any charge at 14.8+ volts.

 

[SubLGT]

To a battery and its full life. I believe it is supposed to hold a steady charge of 13.6V and only initiate "pulse charging" if it drops below that..

What is the charging current at the beginning of stage 7 ?

 

[JT20]

What is the charging current at the beginning of stage 7 ?

I would have to have a multimeter on it, but I think Stage 6 takes it way up to about 15.5V.

I took it off RECOND mode this time so it either skipped or went quickly through Stage 6.

Then Stage 7 holds it at 13.6V. Read 13.75 on mine when I took my reading.

 

[JT20]

Define stage 7. Is this a high voltage equalization charge?

I believe that is Stage 6.

There are a few good pages with good info about this, but I will quote from this one: http://blog.streetsideauto.com/auto-parts/8-stages-ctek-battery-charger/

7. Float Maintenance
After reconditioning, the voltage and the current level off to maintain a floating charge of 13.6 volts to keep your battery topped off. At this stage, your battery will fully charge to 100%. The float charge will remain active for up to 10 days.

Edit:

6. Reconditioning
Once the analysis is done, the charger will spend anywhere from 30 minutes to 4 hours reconditioning your battery. This is good for deep cycle batteries that were previously fully or close to discharged. Reconditioning involves a quick and sustained burst of voltage to fix something called acid stratification.

Often when a battery is overcharged, it can cause the water within the battery acid to split into hydrogen and oxygen. This condenses the remaining acid, which, now heavier, settles at the bottom of the battery. This can also happen through simple gravity if the battery sits unused for long enough. Remember, though, that the more lead touching the acid, the more power you get, so the reconditioning stage sets to shake things up through a process called equalization.CTEK Battery Chargers 56-677

This basically sends enough current through the battery to cause tiny bubbles to form, stirring up the acid settled at the bottom of the battery and remixing the acid and water into an efficient solution.

✓

 

[40w8]

That's good info on lead acid batteries, but could ruin an AGM since no acid flowing around. An AGM should never stay at 14.8+ volts, bubble, or even get over 104 deg F. I'm chicken to leave a maintainer on one. Luckily, I can only disconnect for the 3 months I'm gone, and it's always still charged up when I get back.

 

[JT20]

That's good info on lead acid batteries, but could ruin an AGM since no acid flowing around. An AGM should never stay at 14.8+ volts, bubble, or even get over 104 deg F. I'm chicken to leave a maintainer on one. Luckily, I can only disconnect for the 3 months I'm gone, and it's always still charged up when I get back.

The CTEKs have an AGM mode. I would think it runs the voltages differently.

 

[40w8]

Yeah, I know, and so does BMK, but when it gets up in those stages it still wants to recondition. I ran for BMK 2 4 8, 2 hours and caught it wanting to charge at 14.8 volts where I don't want it to. I'm just saying to watch the charge on AGM's, and get em off when the charge trys to go over 14.7 volts.

The Ctek might be better to not go over 14.7 volts on AGM, but at 4 amps it was slow for me. I have both chargers. Luckily, My BMW is 7.5 years and 34k miles, and battery is still holding charge over 12 volts. I ran it down to 11.8 volts a listening to radio. Turned it off and voltage came back up to 12.3 volts.

 

[Jetronic]

I can set my charger cutoff voltage to 14.4 or 14.8V, maintain voltage is 13.8V. Charge current never goes over 3A, switches to maintain voltage at 0.3A IIRC. Still set to 14.4V for my AGM?

 

[wrcsixeight]

KNowing the voltage that a charger brings a battery to, and how long it holds it there, is good.

Much much better is knowing how much Amperage the battery is accepting at said voltages the charger is seeking/holding.

One of these, displays not only voltage, but amperage and does the calculation for wattage.

It also displays watt hours, amp hours, minimum voltage, peak wattage(surge) peak amperage(surge).

Knowing the voltage only, is like saying I have to drive from A to B, not knowing where A and B is, but knowing your maximum allowed speed.

Seeing amperage flowing at that voltage, and how many amp hours/watt hours the battery accepted while the charger was on, is knowing the starting point, destination, the direction, route, speed of travel, and how long it ultimately took.


These wattmeters are accurate, down to about 0.3 amps, below that and they read a bit less than actual, how much varies but usually at about 0.1 amps of load they might read 0.0. They can be had for as little as 10$ if one shops around.

See what your charger is actually doing. Stop guessing, or assuming you know more about it than you do.

Charger marketing literature is often laughable, as they have to make it seem like they are better than their competitors, so they make up new terms, definitions, and imply defying physics is most likely within the realm of their super duper stage 8 owner fellate, charger.

 

[Jetronic]

it's a simple IUoU charge cycle. Constant 3A to start with until the voltage reaches 14.3V or 14.8V, then the voltage is held there until charge current drops to (and this is the part i'm not 100% about anymore) to 0.3A, then it goes to a float charge of 13.8V. I could measure the current when it switches to float to be sure, but it's 0.3A or lower.

https://www.gys.fr/pdf/datasheet/fr/029132.pdf

 

[circuitsmith]

I prefer complete control of charging with something like this:

Amazon.com