CTEK 2500 charger

[SFVdave]

I'm looking for chargers and came across this one. Anyone have this or have comments? It's over $200 and I want to make sure it does all it claims.
CTEK25000

[MEXICOWANDERER]

If you are convinced buy a pulse charger. I don't think you"re going to find a unified concensus

[landyacht318]

Works as in it recharges a battery from some unknown percentage to some unknown percentage, or works as in 'it magically restored the battery I know nothing about to the point it can start my car?'

The forced 15.7v option at 3 amps does give it one up on most automatic chargers.

Does 25 amps meet your battery manufacturer's 'recommended' initial amps?

Trojan recommends 10 to 13% for their batteries, or 10 to 13 amps for a 100 AH capacity battery.

How long do you have to plug into the grid and perform a recharge?

[SFVdave]

Thanks for all the comments. Anyone out there actually have one that can comment?
Reviews seemed to say it works.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Every battery charger I know of is a "pulse" charger. AC, High frequency, PWM, they ALL pulse. I drove beta units from milliwatts to high wattage. All the way to megaHz...

Sulfation has to be chemically recombined. Can't use a tuning fork to dissolve concrete. The energy used in vibrating electrons is the thing that does the work. kWh vs kWh. Concorde's Lifeline warantee says it is void if pulse charging is entertained on any of their batteries.

[BFL13]

Niner, that Manuel guy is not our Mex, so he doesn't count. 🙂

[time2roll]

Not sure I would like that connected to the RV if 15.7 is a possible voltage.
As a battery charger to charge and maintain an otherwise disconnected battery the CTEK25000 looks as good as any and better than most.
JMHO, no actual experience with this unit.

[NinerBikes]

My old fashion Uno Stage Manuel Sears Roebucker 6 amp 17V for 12V , circa late 1970's does it all, if you have the time, patience, and luck, to get all the sulphate crystals off of a decent battery not too badly abused for too long. I call it the L'il Charger That Could. Because it can and does equalize.

Pigs did fly back in the 1970's, before attorneys neutered them.

[landyacht318]

I was once interested in the Ctek too, but ultimately no smart charger can do what its marketing team claim it can do.

A regularly deeply cycled deep cycle battery has different requirements than a starting battery mistakenly depleted.

As always, never believe the full charge indicator light. this does not indicate that the battery is full, merely that the charger has decided to stop applying absorption voltage prematurely, just like the lawyers insisted.

As far as 8 stages, I wonder what miraculous stage the marketers will come up with next. Equalization and destratification are such impressive terms that going much past 'conditioning' is starting to blur the attention span of the average reader.

I propose a 9 stage charger, with the ninth stage being: super double platinum sulfate blastoid regimen, guaranteed to restore any battery back to and past its original capacity.*

* only effective with extra 200$ donation to Nigerian royalty website.

[MrWizard]

i agree BFL on most of what he said

how ever the pulsing is supposed to be De-crystallizing, aka removing the crystals that form on the plates so they can desolve back into the solution
some people swear by it, some say its BS

Me..i think every little bit helps and it can't hurt

equalizing is stirring the electrolyte with high voltage
this removes stratification and also helps desolve any sulfate crystals that come off the plates

the higher voltage is NEEDED to restore electrolyte density ie specific gravity
which is how the battery gets fully charged to full amp hour capacity

i use a B&D 9340 portable charge for this, like many others on here

[BFL13]

Others who have other chargers can say better than I can how theirs might do instead. To me the OP one looks expensive and not at all "unique" in what it can do.

You can do that job with a 3 amp manual trickle charger if you don't mind keeping an eye on it when the voltage gets high, so it doesn't go over your voltage limit of maybe 16v when desulfating. You have to shut it off yourself when things get too much.

There are other automatic chargers that will do that for much less money (Battery Tender?) Also people are using those Meanwell or whatever gizmos that Mex likes for that work.

Don't know on the OP one, but "recondition" often means to use pulses for a long time in hopes of crystalizing the sulfate, while "desulfation" or "equalizing" is a different mode where voltage climbs to about 16v and attempts to "overcharge" the battery to bring the sulfate into solution. The pulsing recondition method is somewhat dubious. The high voltage method does work for sure.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

THE OPTIMUM CHARGER

• Has charging potential 50% of the ampere hour rating of your battery bank
• Adjustable absorbsion set point - 14.2 to 15.4 volts
• Adjustable timer at absorbsion limit: One hour to six hours
• Float voltage adjustable limit 13.0 volts to 15.0 volts
• Four thermistor inputs for temperature compensation
• AN ALARM IF TEMPERATURE RISES TOO HIGH OR A SEVEN DEGREE F DIFFERENTIAL IS DETECTED BETWEEN THERMOCOUPLES
• Metering that shows individual setpoint values, then switches over to monitoring when exiting setup menu
• WHEN PIGS FLY

[SFVdave]

BLF13- I saw that 14.4v, but it's the removing sulfating and reconditioning modes I'm interested in. Going to use it when I return home. Goes to 15.7 at 3 amps on reconditioning.
here's the manual
CTEK 25000 manual
The Black and Decker has been discontinued and has bad reviews, the fan doesn't last.

[BFL13]

It only goes to 14.4v which is too low for some batteries.

It is only a 25 amper which is not enough amps for charging from a generator when running time matters.

It's recondition mode says it will restore power by fixing stratification. So the ad writer has no clue what stratification is.

You might like the VEC1093DBD depending on what the job is.