I have power in my garage, my car parks on the drive outside the garage and I want to be able to keep my car topped up for a few weeks of non use coming up soon.

 

Somewhere I have my CTEK MXS5 which I can't currently find - worse case I'll buy another as I know it handles AGM batteries for start/stop.

I'm looking for suggestions how/where I can run a cable to keep the battery topped up using the CTEK style comfort connectors. I certainly don't want the bonnet open or the car unlocked.

I'm thinking comfort cable extensions and potentially feeding the cable into the car's cig lighter socket insider as being the best option. Or could I consider wiring a comfort connector to the battery itself - is there a recommended route out of the say grill or elsewhere I could connect the lead too. 

 

Cheers for any help/suggestions.

Edited 28 January, 20197 yr by Scotty72

Remember that there is a dedicated charge point under the bonnet - the battery should never be directly charged - there is a monitor circuit in-line with the negative connection to monitor the battery loading / charging current.

 

 

Just leave it tied to the battery connections with a velcro cable tie and then when you need it, just feed it out of the front of the bonnet it won't hurt it as the rubber seals will take the pressure off it. Or wait until the car is cool and feed it the front grille. 

16 minutes ago, Gti Jazz Blue said:

Remember that there is a dedicated charge point under the bonnet - the battery should never be directly charged - there is a monitor circuit in-line with the negative connection to monitor the battery loading / charging current.

 

 

Well I wouldn't have known until you told me this so thanks - I've had the car since Nov only and have opened the bonnet a couple of times for washer bottle fill ups so far  This is also my first car with stop/start and fancy battery monitoring.

6 hours ago, Gti Jazz Blue said:

Remember that there is a dedicated charge point under the bonnet - the battery should never be directly charged - there is a monitor circuit in-line with the negative connection to monitor the battery loading / charging current.

 

 

 

Where is this please? 

You can trickle charge via the 12v accessory socket in the boot too.

My car is on the drive and connected to a Halfords Smart charge 200 which is in the garage.  I used a flat twin 5amp cable with a cigar lighter plug into the rear 12volt socket.  On the Octavia the socket is mounted on the cardboard? boot lining which isn't very firm, so It has an extension always plugged into it and the charger plug goes into this.  The cable is thin enough to shut in the boot sealing rubber when its closed.  The charger has several settings, one of which is a trickle charge.  It can be left connected indefinitely, as it monitors the battery condition and adjusts the output accordingly.

The bonnet has large enough panel gaps to run not-too-thick 12v trickle charge cables. I have done this from the side of bonnet, down to the ground where a cheap RAC charger sat. The charger has a cardboard box over it, sitting on one tab of the box to secure the box. A plastic bag over the box to rain proof it.

 

I left the car for around 1 month over December, stop/start took a week of my commute, 200+ miles of driving mostly motorway to come back. Then the car sat for 5 more days and stop/start took a further 3 days to come back. I trickle charged it for around 30 hours last weekend, now everything is working really well, stop/start is available as soon as climate control requirement goes away.

There is a tag up on the firewall below the Windscreen which is for the negative side of a charger, the monitor connection is built into the negative battery connection.

 

Charging via the accessory socket will be picked up by the Monitoring circuit - you shouldn't directly charge the battery using the battery terminals themselves.