CTEK(56-865) US 0.8 12 Volt Fully Automatic 6 Step Battery Charger,Black

This thing is awesome. I like the fact that it takes the guess work out of figuring out if your battery is wet cell, agm or gel. It just goes to work and does it's thing. It comes with a set of alligator clamps and a set of cable connectors that just attach to the battery. I connected mine to the battery directly to my motorcycle and walked away. At first I didn't think it was working as it stayed at stage 2 of the charging process for a very long time but by the next morning it was reading that the battery was fully charged. The battery is brand new but it was installed later this summer. With the colder weather setting in and the oil viscosity I had noticed the bike was getting harder and harder to start. I know cold weather is life sucking for batteries but I had no idea how much charge had left it. The ends of the alligator clamps and the eyelets is a simple female plug. There are end caps to those that fully engage the plug with rubber keeping dirt and water from reaching the metal connectors inside it. I routed the cable end through the drainage hole of the battery pan. Plug in walk away or just disconnect and ride! I highly recommend this product for anyone looking for a simple charger that will take the guess work away. For the price I feel it is well worth it and you're not buying a new battery at the beginning of spring definitely makes it worth it.

My 3rd CTEK and they are all fantastic. Bought this one for my lawn tractor battery. Works great.

This is CTEK's smaller charger for charging 12V batteries from 1.2Ah to 32 Ah and maintaining batteries up to 100Ah. This is a true smart charger with "six" stages. Truth be known, it's really three but I'll say that the others are nice to have. It's a sealed unit about 8" end to end including the strain releif on the permantly affixed leads. If features mounting holes on the main body which are nice (fitting #8 machine screws, 10's might fit.) The unit gets warm, not overly hot, but noticably warm. If this unit is perminantly mounted as in my case, use nylon spacers behind to give it a little air between the unit and the wall. I think the back is the warmest part of the unit. Despite being sealed (and assumed by many to be weather proof) the instructions clearly say this unit is not be used in the elements. It has a sturdy two prong cord that might be a bit short for many applications but a 16ga extension cord should be safe to use as long as all other safe considerations are made. It ships with two types of leads (both fused with ATC style fuses). An aligator style clip with large jaws suitable for full sized car batteries. It also ships with 1/4" ring terminals that can be quick detached from the charger without disconnecting from the battery terminals. What is a "smart charger"? Simply put its a chager that regulates the voltage going to a battery to prevent over charging it and most then "float" when they determine the battery has reached a full charge. 20 years ago most chargers needed to be monitored. Nowadays most small electronics have over charge circutry built in (i.e - cell phones, laptops, ect.) But for some reason, some 12V chargers are still using a steady voltage source to charge batteries. Over an extended period it will literally "Cook" the battery. Not all smart chargers are made equal either. Some have a bulk charge that brings the voltage to 14.4V for a time then "floats" the battery at a lesser voltage for extended periods of storage. CTEK has included programing that periodically analyzes the battery and mades a decision on whether it needs to continue floating or actually transition back to a heavier charge stage. Unlike chargers for smaller batteries and lithium batteries this charger does not require nor have the ability to enter the Ah capacity into the charger. Instead like most"car" battery chargers it relies strickly on voltage which as long as your charging Lead-acid type batteries is fine.The stages are...1) Desulfation - removes build-up on lead plates inside the battery.2) Bulk Charge - Brings the battery voltage up to 14.4V and about 80% of maximum capacity.3) Absorption - Continues the charge with steadily declining current while still holding the voltage at close to 14.4.4) Analyse - Stops charging and sees if battery voltage free-falls (happens if battery has reached the end of its life cycle.)5) Float - Applies roughly 13.2V at a small current to maintain the battery voltage.6) Pulse - Not entirely sure but sounds a lot like float, it switches off and on rather rapidly to maintain maximum charge.According to the literature batteries may take as much as 1 hour per Ah to reach 80%. After 80% times are hard to find but it sounds like this is also where you can maintain larger capacity batteries (32-100Ah.) For my use, I'm charging a 22Ah sealed lead acid battery as part of a power supply for a DC powered electronics project. So far it's doing well. But this charger would certainly be suitable for small motorcycles, lawn tractors, and generators with electric start. As a maintainer, for larger batteries I'm less entusiastic about it. I would spend a little more money and move up to the CTEK 4.3 or the 7002. The 32Ah limit on bulk charging makes this somewhat less attractive for owners of boats, RVs, and garage kept cars. As long as the battery is fully charge when stored it works but especailly with boats that may not always be the case. Still the "0.8" is leaps and bounds ahead of its competition and only about $10 more expensive. Just make sure to follow the safety practices listed and always inspect your batteries regularly. Also, this may boil water off a NON-maintenance free battery so be aware of that if thats what your application uses.This paragraph is specific to my application but I went ahead an included it as it might give others some insight. So that I might get more detailed information I allowed the 22Ah SLA battery to discharge (disconnected the charger) under normal usage. It averaged about 60mA of current draw from the battery for about 36 hours. The starting voltage at the beginning on the discharge was 13.3V and the ending was just under 12.9V. Once the charger was reconnected quickly moved to stage 2 and started the charge around 13.2V @ 900mA. This trailed off within a few minutes to 13.6V @ 850mA. After a half hour, still on stage 2 it was pushing 13.8V @ 800mA. Through all of this the load was still connected drawing roughly 36mA. At an hour it was still stage 2 with 13.9V @ 790mA. In fact the amp charge held 790 until it passed a charge voltage of 14.2. Up until that point the battery had been taking the steady 790mA and adding 1mV about every ten seconds. Passing 14.2V however the amperage began to trail off the voltage increase slowed as well. At that point it was nearing the end of the stage 2 cycle. Still it took another hour to complete dropping to about 560mA of current and peaking at 14.27V. Total time spent on the bulk cahrge was 2hrs 45mins. As stage 3 began the voltage inceased slightly to about 14.28V but the amperage steadily but slowly deceased. 15 mins after beginning stage 3 the amerage was down another 50mA to 510. After an hour the amperage had dropped to 430mA and the voltage had climbed just shy of 14.29V. After 3 hours into stage 3 the power moving into the battery was 14.30V @ just below 360mA. By 4.5hrs the voltage was holding steady at 14.30V and amperage was down maginally to 345mA. The CTEK transitioned to stage 5 (float mode) after about 4hrs 45mins on stage 3 and about 7.5hrs total. That battery began discharging due to the DC load I had connected. The voltage began steadily dropping for about 25 mins then when reaching the target float voltage and while still on stage 5 the readings began fluctuating about every two seconds. The battery would discharge for a half second then recieve a charge of about 60mA for 1 sec. This has continued to repeat. While in the stage 5 float mode the battery charger is much cooler. Only lightly warm to the touch. When I changed the load from "standy" to in use the float applied a steady current of 40 to 50mA to offset the 100mA to 120mA of draw. The battery voltage dropped about 1mV every two mins. However with the load returned to the standby mode the float current once again stablized and retuned to its pulsing fluctuation. So in summery this will float a battery with less and 45mA of draw on it (clocks, ect) and can always revert back to a full charge if that proves to be insufficent.

I bought a motorcycle and noticed it had a hard wired connection after a little researching i cam across this charge I have since used it to charge every battery I have from a Optima battery used in my golf cart to a car battery works great as a battery tender for my motorcycle as well

.**The manual states this charger should be used for charging batteries from 1.2Ah to 32Ah. If it fails to charge your big battery in a hurry don't complain, the information is in there. My "guess" is that if you choose to charge larger batteries you might end up with a shorter life span from the charger. The manual states it can *Maintain* all batteries from 1.2Ah to 100Ah in the temperature range of -4 to +122 Fahrenheit**-The CTEK 0.8 comes with two different cables that feature different end options. One cable has post clamps that are a little thicker than most and will prove a pain with some small batteries. They did clamp onto my motorcycle battery post's but it wasn't in a secure manner. Thin or thick clamps isn't a deal breaker for people with small batteries because as with 99% of all small chargers/maintainers sold these days this charger also comes with a cable that has an eyelet end with about a 1/4 inch hole so you can bolt it to the battery posts in a secure manner.The CTEK 0.8 not only has charging abilities but their manual also states it has a desulphation mode that puts it above most others. That is except for Battery Minder because it also features a desulphation mode. Whether desulphation works for you or not, well, your results may vary.I hooked it up to both my 50Ah Optima Red Top car battery and my 8.5Ah Yuasa motorcycle battery and observed the following:(I had fully charged the batteries being used a few days beforehand)In charge mode I witnessed peaks of about 14.36V with either battery. When the charger switched over to float mode is where I noticed a difference.With the charger in float mode hooked to the 8.5Ah motorcycle battery the charger produced a steady 13.67-13.68VWith the charger in float mode hooked to the 50Ah Optima battery the charger produced a steady 13.6-13.61V**(I'm sorry I don't own any equipment that will allow me to measure AMP's otherwise I would have included that information as well)**That's pretty good for just about any battery including my Optima. From Optima's site regarding Float Charging:13.2 to 13.8 volts; 1 amp maximum current (indefinite time at lower voltages)In the manual it states the float cycle lasts 10 days after which it will switch to a pulse mode. I did in fact observe just that.When it switches to pulse mode it lets the voltage drop to 12.7V then it goes into a charge mode and brings the voltage up to 14.32V before turning off again and letting the voltage drop to 12.7V and repeating the cycle. Personally I would rather have the voltage only go as low as 12.8V as it would be better for an AGM battery and it won't hurt a standard flooded battery.For the length of time it spends in float mode it's become one of my favorites but I believe I like the Battery Minder just a little better because it desulphates while in float mode and float mode seems to last forever holding at a specified voltage.(I listed what my other chargers do in the comments section because I wanted to keep this pretty focused on the CTEK 0.8)_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Allow me a couple words before anybody has a problem with their automatic charger and wants to downgrade their rating because they think they have found a fault:Not many Automatic chargers that I've tried will start to charge a *Completely* dead battery. Most have minimum voltage requirements that must be met. This information is available in their manuals. I tried it with a battery reading 2.25 volts and none of my automatic chargers (I have several) will initiate their charge mode. If your automatic charger fails to start charging check how much voltage the battery has before claiming the charger doesn't work. This is where the use of a small 1AMP *Manual* charger will come in handy to raise the voltage a little. Then you can switch over and use your automatic charger to finish charging -IF- the battery is actually good.Another method used is to raise the battery voltage level is series charging.You can also hook up a similar good fully charged battery in series (Positive to Positive & Neg to Neg) with battery cables and then hook the charger to the dead battery and start to charge. The good battery will trick the charger into thinking there is enough voltage to begin charging. In about an hour remove the good battery and try to charge the low battery on it's own. If it doesn't hook up the good battery in series again and charge for another hour and try to charge the low battery by itself again. Repeat until you can charge the low battery on it's own.You want to charge the low battery on it's own as soon as you can.