Ctek vs Genius?

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: BHopkins
But you need to get past that and watch the rest of the videos. He has a lot of technical knowledge and diagnostic aptitude. I'd be careful in blowing him off as a "dumbo".

Yeah, here is another bit of his "technical knowledge." He says he connected it to a dead battery, and then wonders why the charger isn't charging at full 3.5A. Who knows what the state of that battery actually was. If it was really bad, the charger may have gone into recovery mode first, which would explain the lower and pulsating current. The owner's manual explains it, but he doesn't strike me as someone who would actually bother reading it.

Quote:
Recovery
Initializes the Recovery desulfation process (if needed)
for deeply discharged or sulfated batteries by pulsing
small amounts of current.


This comment made by someone under his video summarizes it well, IMO:
Originally Posted By: 2009dudeman
The primary reason that you don't see full 3.5A charging current is due to the "spark proof" design as well as dead battery recovery. Low contact current as well as a slow ramp to full power (on full size battery that time can be as long as 20 mins), both prevents most sparking on connect or disconnect, and for the first bit of charging, it isn't actually charging, its testing the battery.

 

[BHopkins]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete

But you need to get past that and watch the rest of the videos. He has a lot of technical knowledge and diagnostic aptitude. I'd be careful in blowing him off as a "dumbo".

Yeah, here is another bit of his "technical knowledge." He says he connected it to a dead battery, and then wonders why the charger isn't charging at full 3.5A. Who knows what the state of that battery actually was. If it was really bad, the charger may have gone into recovery mode first, which would explain the lower and pulsating current. The owner's manual explains it, but he doesn't strike me as someone who would actually bother reading it.

Recovery

Yea, I suspect you are right about him skipping past reading the manual.

 

[Johnny2Bad]

The NOCOs look perfectly fine, performance-wise. As does the Battery Minder.

Back when I first bought my CTEK 3300 and was researching chargers, I also looked at those made by SONEIL, who OEM for a number of brands worldwide, as well as for Government, Defence and Aerospace applications, and use the same multistep routines this technology applies. Their 12V/3A model has a MSRP of $US 50 (Model: 1206S). They received their first patents on the switch-mode "smart" charge routines in 1994.

At the time (maybe 10 years ago) there were fewer options, as some of the technology was still patent protected. Today that's no longer the case.

The only ones that were popular at the time that I would not recommend to a friend or family member is the Battery Tender brand.

For anyone in Canada, the Canadian Tire house-brand MOTO-made MotorMaster 12V/2A unit sells for $C47 ($US35).