Battery charger/maintainer

[rbg]

Thanks guys, looks like CTEK honor the warranty if purchased through amazon. So it is $80 vs $50 that is not that bad and I went with the MXS 5.0 with one day delivery! Can you use it power the car when coding?

[Phoenix///M3]

[Obioban]

Thanks guys, looks like CTEK honor the warranty if purchased through amazon. So it is $80 vs $50 that is not that bad and I went with the MXS 5.0 with one day delivery! Can you use it power the car when coding?

I do. That said, I've coded the car just leaving it in position 2 on my <6 lb battery, soooo.... maybe my standards for this are low. Generally anything other than the airbag module is pretty easy to recover if you do have an issue.

[oceansize]

CTEK 7002 is one of the best things I've bought, November 2019, and I should've have bought one sooner.

[r4dr]

You want something with more amperage to flash your DME than most standard trickle charges provide. My trickle charger is 1.25A, my charger is a 10A unit, and that is what I run when flashing the DME.

This. Also, all the chargers I've seen linked here that I've clicked on do not supply 14 V @ 10 A as far as I can tell. The ECUWorx SMG flash instructions specify a "battery tender or intelligent charger that is capable of working in ‘supply’ to provide 14V @ 10A" and I wasn't able to find something like that from a reliable company on Amazon (the CTEK MXS10 Martyn also recommends doesn't seem to be a current product anymore).

Let's just clarify that to *maintain* or *charge* a battery back up is not as demanding as *supplying* at full power, which is what is ideal for doing something like flashing the DME. Though a 5 or 7 amp charger would probably give enough juice provided your battery isn't close to dead.

I have 4 or 5 battery tenders between the cars, and I ended up borrowing an actual supply from a shop to flash my DME out of paranoia.

[rbg]

I am so confused :-) Should I get CTEK 7002 then, as that one is closer to 14V@10A requirement. I am actually very surprised coding is so demanding...
Perfect example how you look to buy a $50 charger and ending up looking into top like $150 one haha :-)

[r4dr]

I am so confused :-) Should I get CTEK 7002 then, as that one is closer to 14V@10A requirement. I am actually very surprised coding is so demanding...
Perfect example how you look to buy a $50 charger and ending up looking into top like $150 one haha :-)

If your battery is in reasonable health and you're not planning on coding over and over without driving the car around, you will probably be fine with the chargers in this thread (the 5-7 A ones). But YMMV.

[Obioban]

I am so confused :-) Should I get CTEK 7002 then, as that one is closer to 14V@10A requirement. I am actually very surprised coding is so demanding...
Perfect example how you look to buy a $50 charger and ending up looking into top like $150 one haha :-)

I don’t think coding, in particular, is. Rarely does a module write take more than 5 seconds, and your battery has to be in pretty bad nick to not be able to supply 10A for 5 seconds...

[heinzboehmer]

I am so confused :-) Should I get CTEK 7002 then, as that one is closer to 14V@10A requirement. I am actually very surprised coding is so demanding...
Perfect example how you look to buy a $50 charger and ending up looking into top like $150 one haha :-)

The reason why you want a charger that can output more current for coding is because you want to make sure the charger can support the whole load of the electronic system in the same way the alternator would. If this is not the case, coding a module might drain the battery enough to the point where communications start failing or the module starts freaking out. This could lead to a bricked module which is very hard/impossible to recover through the ODB II port. A regular trickle charger/maintainer is made to keep the battery charged with the great majority of the electronics turned off, which requires significantly less current.

That being said, I've reflashed my DME without a charger and didn't have any issues. I do however have the hardware necessary to recover the DME if inadvertently bricked, which is why I didn't care enough to throw a charger on. Would not recommend this, but definitely possible.

[Obioban]

The reason why you want a charger that can output more current for coding is because you want to make sure the charger can support the whole load of the electronic system in the same way the alternator would. If this is not the case, coding a module might drain the battery enough to the point where communications start failing or the module starts freaking out. This could lead to a bricked module which is very hard/impossible to recover through the ODB II port. A regular trickle charger/maintainer is made to keep the battery charged with the great majority of the electronics turned off, which requires significantly less current.

That being said, I've reflashed my DME without a charger and didn't have any issues. I do however have the hardware necessary to recover the DME if inadvertently bricked, which is why I didn't care enough to throw a charger on. Would not recommend this, but definitely possible.

Even the DME can very likely be recovered with MSSFLASHER (so through the obd port).

[heinzboehmer]

Even the DME can very likely be recovered with MSSFLASHER (so through the obd port).

Sure, but trying to recover it only increases the chances of bricking it in a way that can't be recovered without a BDM interface, especially if you're not too familiar with the DME, the flashing process, different software versions, etc. I was just trying to highlight the fact that it's safer to throw a charger on than to rely on the battery when flashing things.

[bjz!]

You could buy the CTEK with the BMW or Ferrari logo on it (as they just rebadge them) and have easy dealer access :P
That said, unlike other chargers I've had previously, they seem to pretty much just last forever... so I wouldn't worry a ton about ease of warranty exchanges.

CTEK for lithium batteries: https://www.ctek.com/uk/products/car/lithium-xs-uk

I have two of the MXS 5.0s and and of the Lithium XSs.

Also, they make the 0.8 for Yamaha.

[Calb]

I’ve been using the Battery Tender I bought from Costco for 5 years now. Works fine for my purpose to trickle charge the battery for winter storage.

[oceansize]

Using the CTEK 7002 I can run the full SMG adaptations, which takes 24 to 27 minutes, in power supply mode without issue. Make sure battery is fully charged and in good health prior to starting whatever it is you are doing and you should not have any problems.

[Distinct]

So many amps here. I've been using a 0.75A maintainer because I store the vehicle and don't daily drive it. It takes like 2+ days to charge a dead battery 😁.