Hi everyone,

 

Does anyone use a battery maintainer/charger, battery support unit or jump starter (as an added battery)  when coding?

 

If you do - do you have any recommendations?  I think the support unit is the gold standard (but at gold standard prices) and i was wondering if another option would suffice for the odd driveway coding session to prevent the car battery dropping as a result?

 

Thanks all

 

Gaz

The first thing I code is the option to turn the DRL's on and off in the infotainment so you can minimise the power draw whilst coding.

Personally I have never hooked a car up whilst charging as the car will tell you when the power has dropped to a critical level (I then run the engine).

 

That said I have since bought a smart CTEK battery charger, which I am very impressed with.

My mom has a car that hasn't been driven for 7 years, a couple of chargers failed to charge the 'new' (unused) but 7 year old battery, my CTEK bought it back to life.

I seem to recall @SashaGrace has something to do this and linked it in another thread - but can i find that thread again.....i really should write things down more often.

I've done loads of driveway sessions on many cars, old and new, well maintained, not so well maintained and been hooked up on and off  with each mod and never had any trouble with a low battery. (Laptops run out though, so have an inverter running on the cars I've coded). 

 

On my own Octavia MK3 downloading all the Controller Maps took a while and the  central electrics had several thousand lines of code and it started fine after. 

 

Second @Gizmo for the CTek units they are excellent bits of kit, £65 for an MSX 5.0 just in case perhaps, and do a deep maintenance charge once or twice a year depending on car usage. 

 

Edited 4 July, 20214 yr by paulski

Seconded regarding the laptop running out of battery, I have an invertor that I made decades ago hidden amongst my stuff in the UK, I never thought that I would get to use it again.

 

Looking at my laptop charger its 18.5 volt 3.5 amp, do the Chinese make any cheap car lighter socket invertor chargers?

Just be careful in regards to ground loops etc if you're using chargers/invertors on either the car or laptop with OBD devices connected.

 

From Rosstech:

Quote

 If you are having difficulty while running a laptop on battery power, try powering it via a correct A/C adapter. If you are having difficulty while connected to A/C power, try running the laptop off battery power. If you are using a power supply for a laptop, it should be one specifically designed for that purpose, NOT a "universal" adapter. If you are using an inverter, make sure it is a proper one without ground loop issues.

 

And just as an example: https://www.ross-tech.com/vag-com/interfaces/warn-12v.html

I have a nice garage for starters...For at least the past 10yrs I place the laptop on the bench in front of the car, wind the passenger window all the way down...then run a USB powered Startech extension cable between the VCDS cable & the laptop passing it through the open passenger window. I also plug the laptop in the mains & I place the car on my Cteck charger & set it to "12v supply".....no problems....

Edited 14 August, 20214 yr by fabdavrav

Sounds "comfortable", think hang up my VCDS boots and come round to yours @fabdavrav next time pouring down and below 5C...

4 hours ago, fabdavrav said:

USB powered Startech extension cable

Do you have any details of this, please?

2 hours ago, paulski said:

Sounds "comfortable", think hang up my VCDS boots and come round to yours @fabdavrav next time pouring down and below 5C...

 

I'm at the other end of the UK....& +5C is warm....

 

1 hour ago, MikeTheThinker said:

Do you have any details of this, please?

 

I think this is mine 5m long they do other lengths....I use many of their products in my computer builds...quite good!

5m USB 2.0 Active Extension Cable - M/F - USB 2.0 Cables | United Kingdom (startech.com)