Just thought I’d mention that, having left my side lights on a drained my battery COMPLETELY flat, a nice RAC guy jumped it and it’s all sorted.
I think some people worry about trickle chargers and the like so I’d just like to say the ‘traditional’ route has worked for me.
The battery is newish and I’m runing a 1.8i Mark 1 (1996).
Big up the RAC by the way; great service!
LB 
Well done Byron, these trickle chargers are less than useless in truth, requiring millivolts before they will even think about charging is about as useful as chocolate nipples on a teapot!
Glad to hear the RAC are still giving good service, I just joined up for the full European rescue/breakdown service
If you continue to use a conventional trickle charger on any sort of gel battery you will eventually ruin it. That’s why chargers like the CTek were developed, these batteries need to be conditioned rather than fast charged
lots of battery chargers do this now as a “safety feature” all halfords chargers for instance.
Problem is that the life of these westco batteries seams to be very limited in my expearience over 2 cars and 3 batteries. We are currently running std batteries with no issues .
The trickle chargers are good for what they are,if like my Mk 1 who now does not get ragged as much up and down the motorways i can leave her safe on a trickle/smart charger,keeping the Batt conditioned ready for use,jump starting a flat batt will not get to it’s full charge, i would fit a lights left on buzzer for a couple of £’s of the bay,so it will not happen again,like i have.
M-m
Stupid comment - do you know what a trickle charger is ?
Trickle chargers like the optimate are the best way to preserve your battery and lengthen its life, especially if the vehicle is not used for a peiod of time. I use mine on two motorbike batteries and the MX5. The MX5 panasonic battery has been thoroughly abused and must be 10 years old now.
There seems to be a bit of confusion over terminology here
Trickle charger goes back 70 plus years, in it’s simplest form a couple of diodes a stepdown transformer a large capacitor and a meter. This thing delivers a very rough approximation of a 12Volt dc source. The later battery conditioners monitor the battery state and apply the correct inputs to gently bring the battery to full charge, they then maintain that charge for as long as the charger is connected. If you leave a trickle charger connected for long periods you WILL boil the water off the battery and cause corrosion in the surrounding areas.
Like your simile there - or is it a metaphor?
Yes - battery is fine despite claims regarding ‘wet cells’ and ‘gel’. RAC guy looked at battery and said - “I can jump it mate.”
Thumbs up for RAC generally. 30 mins wait on a Sunday eveening! BONZA.
LB
Treat 'em mean - keep 'em keen, like?
G’day mate
Hadn’t read that, I’m going from first principals learned as an RAF apprentice back in the '60s. The wiki seems to tell a reasonable story though.
Its not very clear but I think that these modern chargers like the optimate have smart technology enabling them to do a combination of trickle charging and float charging. The important thing is they don’t cook the battery or warp the plates by banging in too hard a charge.
I blew my old faithful charger(owned for over 30 years) up helping a neighbour the other day. Unknown to me her battery had a dead short somewhere and as no thermal cutout in the old charger, it charged itself to destruction - nearly burnt the dustbin out I had put it in to keep out the rain too. You could always judge the charge on wet car batteries by the bubbling rate but no chance with a gel battery.
Just for information, the Mazda manual states that the charge rate for the panasonic battery is 3-4 amps. But it may be quick charged at a rate of 20amps for 30 minutes providing the battery is placed in a pan of water which should reach half way up the battery to prevent overheating. I think the main causes of damage are too high a charging rate causing it to heat up, and continuing to charge at 3-4amps when the battery is fully charged, again this will result in overheating with all its consequences, distorted and sulphated plates, cracked connector links, reduced battery life etc. The new breed of charger which switches off or reduces to a few milliamps when the battery reaches full charge avoids all this. They also detect when the battery is completely flat. In these circumstances a normal charger would simply cut out. In the old days if a battery was completely flat the practice was to start the charge rate very low and at 6volts until the battery had enough charge to accept 12 volts and charge nomally. Again the new chargers do all this automatically.
Regards Geoff Peace.