Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Attaching Ctek charger direct to battery.

If permanently wiring in charger cables perhaps best pay heed to Dave W`s suggestion.. for a fuse on the positive cable as close to the battery terminal as possible in order to avoid the lightweight charging cables becoming a fire hazard by glowing white hot along their length should they short out under a carpet or elsewhere for any reason, be the charger in use or when out on the road. I think there has been an example of something similar causing burning to trim on the forum recently..?

If you want a bolted connection but find battery access difficult, you could always fix it on top of the heavy battery cable that is bolted onto the starter solenoid under the bonnet. Then pick up a decent earth for the negative lead from engine casing or any convenient earthed metalwork under the bonnet. Secure the charger’s socket with a cable-tie away from moving parts and water splash. OK it means bonnet will be open whilst connected but less chance of driving out of the garage with charger still connected! (almost done that on occasion!)

Dave’s advice on fusing essential as any inbuilt fuses or overload devices on the Cetek itself will not protect from a fault on the connecting lead when fault current is fed from car battery rather than charger. Chances of a fault on such a short lead may well-be remote but consequences disastrous. My neighbour’s battery once exploded whilst charging and bits were found in all distant parts of his double garage!

Deejay/Doug, your mention of the exploding battery reminds me of an industrial accident where lead acid batteries had been overcharging and thus gassing, the gas built up and was exposed to a spark causing some of the batteries to explode..! From a dull memory the gas given of may be Hydrogen.. One poor chap lost an eye in the incident and was sprayed with acid... Batteries can pack a LOT of power. Do treat them with a degree of respect.

On the subject of CTeks, I have two in use on the Morgan and the Porsche but neither apparently ever reaches the "pulsing" stage (the last light on the indicators). Any ideas why theis might be?

Mie is bolted to the terminals but just like DaveW I added an inline fuse to be safe.

Max5 ....If it's like mine you have to select that function by repeatedly pressing the mode button on switching on ..... it's really for occasional use rather than every charge (and shouldn't be used for Li-on batteries)

Likely different for other models (and they do make a few!)

K

CTEK do a 'comfort' connector with larger M8 eyelet connectors and in line fuse to connect direct to battery terminals. Cost around £7.50 on Amazon. Just fitted one works a treat.

If you're confident soldering, put a male cigarette plug on the end, the internal cabling on your Mog is fused to this feed anyway & then you can use the Ctek on almost any car you have including the daily tintop

Same as Britmog. No problems.

Mine has the connector supplied by Ctek bolted to the Odyssey battery terminals. The battery is under the bonnet so easy access. I initially used the power socket connector in the glovebox ( daft location) but t the connection wasn’t that good as slight movement could cause it to disconnect.
I tend not to leave it off the Ctek for too long so it is left connected.
The only issue I have is the mode button not selecting consistently. I have opened the unit and sprayed contact cleaner but only a slight improvement. The button on top of the microswitch doesn’t seem to hit and activate the internal switch part. I popped it off and used a thin probe to push in and that works ok. I need to lengthen the button connector.
This is apparently a common-ish fault.