Ctek... Which one?

[Dr H]

14 hours ago, Mutley00 said:

The Aldi ones are guaranteed for 3 years - didnt you take it back?

Yup, got a refund no questions. Just my luck, never seen a bad review!

[timbo]

Out of interest, what were the failure symptoms on the Aldi unit?

Common fail with momentary membrane switches (as on CTek) is damp causing a short on the button contacts and/or rusting the 'pop' button. Just goes to show that the higher cost doesn't necessarily reflect on equivalent better quality.

Most smart chargers work on monitoring delta-V change: As a battery hits peak capacity and goes into 'overcharged', the voltage will start to drop. The monitoring i/c identifies this and automatically reduces the charge current to mA trickle.

 

[Dr H]

9 hours ago, timbo said:

Out of interest, what were the failure symptoms on the Aldi unit?

It just stopped working. Wouldn't read any voltage when connected to a battery and charge light stopped coming on.

[timbo]

Probably output wire broken somewhere, so just a one-off issue.

Interestingly, as electronics get smaller, they get more reliable so it's the bigger bits that tend to fail!