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Today at Atelier Kaz - ex-Honda R&D, F1, Indy/CART engineer

Ctek mxs 5.0

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2 Comments
by
Kaz-kzukNA1
, 21-10-2012 at 03:01 PM (9750 Views)











I have been using the battery conditioner from Optimate/Accumate for
many years simply because it was used by many racing teams for
charging their battery on the race cars and etc.


I have been very happy with their products and never had any issues.


I know some of the owners are using the one from CTEK and on
many occasions, I saw the CTEK cable attached to the battery on their NSX.


Instead of making adaptor cable or moving around the
battery conditioner between many cars,
decided to buy one model from CTEK this time.

I don’t need the super-duper one but
wanted to have the capability of reconditioning feature so
decided to go for the MXS 5.0 model.

If you shop around on ebay, you can find it a little bit cheaper than
the price from Amazon but if something goes wrong within
the warranty period, it seems that Amazon is quick to react so
decided to get one from them.

Paid about GBP59 delivered.

Because it was delivered as a standard Royal Mail package,
it was even delivered on Saturday without
any extra charge which was a nice bonus.










It comes with 5 year warranty.

Inside the package, you will find the storage bag, user manual,
M6 eyelet cable and the clamp cable.









Compared to Optimate, as you can see on many feedback on the web,
the cable length of CTEK is not long enough.

So, if you don’t have power socket nearby, you may struggle.

Having said this, it’s IP65 rated so you could keep the unit in the rain with
precaution not to let it sit in the water puddle though you still need to
keep the power socket away from any moisture.


I have few old batteries that are more than 8 years old and
just being used for cranking the engine or emergency jump start so
it would be interesting to see how the
reconditioning feature works on these.








It has cold mode as well which will increase the
charge voltage just a bit higher which is great for
those with Odyssey and Optima batteries.

Also, it is to be used for the cold weather condition.


I only just started using this so can’t comment on the specific features or
long term impression but so far, happy with it and
seems to be great addition to my Optimate/Accumate conditioners.


Kaz



Categories
Personal View/Self Talk , Electronics

Comments

  1. greenberet's Avatar
    I’ve been using an Optimate III SP for many years now but also purchased a CTEK MXS 5.0 recently.

    The battery in my wife’s Vespa couldn’t hold a charge anymore and I needed to hook up the Optimate once a week so that the thing would start. Instead of simply buying a new battery, I decided to try a new charger first. The Optimate’s 0.6 amp charging current is very gentle and is fine for charging small batteries but charging the 110 Ah battery in my daily driver sometimes took several days. CTEK’s MXS 5.0 has a recondition mode and its charging current can be switched between 0.8 and 5.0 amps. I figured the CTEK might be able to save the battery in my wife’s Vespa and in any case, it would give me some control regarding how fast larger batteries are charged, if time is short.

    I haven’t hooked the CTEK up to a car yet, but after applying the recondition mode, my wife reports her Vespa starts more easily than it has in years and I haven’t had to recharge it since. So far, I’m happy with the purchase.
  2. Kaz-kzukNA1's Avatar
    Hi, greenberet. Thank you for sharing your experience.

    Optimate III SP....
    I think it was designed to charge a battery of up to about 12V 30Ah so good for very small batteries and will be fine for conditioning the higher capacity ones.

    As you experienced, depending on how far the battery was discharged, it may take ages to charge the larger capacity ones.


    So far, I’m also happy with the MXS 5.0 apart from the cable length.

    Used the recondition mode on my spare very old tired batteries as recommended in the manual to do so once a year on this type of old batteries.
    As they were fine even before carrying out the reconditioning mode, I can’t tell whether it made any differences or not so I can only say it went through the mode without any issues.

    Kaz