Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing 12 volt wiring help please!

The cigarette lighter socket re-purposed as a DC outlet is a disaster despite being adopted as an industry standard. The sprung centre pin and insecure locking of outer regularly cause intermittent connections.

Add to this minimal wiring dimensions, a 10 amp limit (if you are lucky) and strong likelihood you won't get full benefits of charger due to volt drop on the tenuous connection.

I would never use one by choice fitting instead the compact Hella/DIN type allowing captive plug and higher current rating.

Better still connect charger directly to battery or engineer dedicated charge cable as Keith suggests.

Note a battery within its working life should be fine to start a any car even in winter, if it's not left for more than three weeks between full charges.

Probably the original connector on FW's BMW charger.
Wonder if the BMW one was a charger, or a battery conditioner?
1A is sufficient to keep a car battery topped up, BUT, one wouldn't want to keep that level of charge rate once the battery is near fully charged.

In my book a battery charger is the generic term. Battery conditioner seems to have crept in to describe low current, typically <= 4amp smart (multi-mode) chargers. These may offer pulse charging but all have a float mode, usually in the order of a volt or more lower than full charge voltage, say 13.2 to 13.6 volts for lead/acid batteries.

A lead/acid battery will draw whatever charge current it needs within max current available and the battery charge voltage upper limit controlled by charger. Any smart charger left on will sooner or later will drop to float mode and can be left on safely 24/7 which will help to reduce long term sulphation, the main ageing effect.

Even on float over extended periods there will eventually be some sulphation of battery plates and/or stratification of electrolyte. Some smart chargers seek to offset this by automatically rebooting into the full charge sequence every 15 days or so. If in doubt this can be user instigated simply by turning smart charger off then on again.

Another thing to note is that if the battery is below a certain charge, my CTEK won't charge. I don't know if this is true for all smart chargers.

That's probably because your charger self senses it's actually connected to a battery and in the case of my CTEK clone adjusts to charge a 6 or 12 volt battery automatically. It needs a minimal voltage present though which from memory is 7.2 volts for 12 volt charging.

TBH if your battery has dropped to this level it's probably goosed anyway.

CTEK ordered, should be with me tomorrow..

Have looked at how to hard wire the output from the battery and seems to be within my capabilities although access to the battery is a bit challenging.

Battery is absolutely fine, as it’s a new car, connecting to the conditioner is very much a pre-emptive strike especially as the manual suggests hooking it up if it’s going to be left more than 3 days..which I’d bet 99% of Mogs are.

Which kind of makes me wonder (1) why the factory don’t provide a direct port for charging as standard and (2) why they don’t supply a CTEK type charger as standard - the cost could easily be added to the standard price and not be noticed..

Used CTEK on the last Mog, well worth the cost as it contributed to the original OE Banner battery lasting 14 yrs (not a typo)

Fat Wolfie

The battery on my +4 supersport is behind the passenger seat with an aluminium entry panel.

I drilled a hole through the ply panel at the side of the aluminium panel and connected the leads supplied with the Ctek direct to the battery with an in line fuse.

The Ctek unit can now be connected using the supplied quick release connectors..job done !!!

I also use the direct battery connection to connect a heated waistcoat for those cold days !!!..I don't use my roof.

When I purchased my +4 I noticed a red flashing light at the side of SWMBO's seat, I found out it was the connector for a hard wired Ctek (and not the rare optional ejector seat for SWMBO as suggested by one sage), there are in fact three LED's, red, orange and green as a traffic light system to indicate battery condition.
It is certainly easy to plug in the charger/conditioner but the indication goes red quite quickly even after some good prolonged running or charge and the battery is fine.
This is a Ctek part and I would suggest it's use if hard wiring in.

Good luck and enjoy your car.