Maypole 4A Dual Voltage 6/12V Electronic Smart Car Battery Charger | Fully Automatic, 5 Stage Charging Cycle, Lead Acid, AGM

I have several of these doing different jobs and I have given a few to good friends.We have a Motorhome and in winter I leave one of these on each of the battery circuits. We keep a little caravan for my wife parents and that battery sits all winter on one.The original built on chargers are not as good to the batteries and I have monitored the original types and they all too often maintain too high continues voltage to be sustained by a battery.I have two 15kw stand-by generators on our two yards and these now have the Maypole chargers as their original units eventually cooked the batteries.I have deliberately not quoted anything about voltages or "stages" as not everyone understands all that but I do understand how a battery works and I have changed 1000s in may lifetime and I know most reasons for their demise and most reasons are over/under charge.For devoted brand name followers this does the job and does it well in the £20 price bracket.The 4a now has an AGM mode availableI have never tried one on a flat battery. I am very unlikely to have a flat battery as I was a mechanic and understand all to well the idea that a 12v battery once allowed to go down well below 12v never mind 7 or 8v is unlikely to recover properly so if you have a "flat" battery maybe best to get a good battery first as these no chargers is a magician.Once you have the good battery in your camper/motorhome/generator/motorcycle then buy one of these and it'll not go flat again. Instead of having a dud battery every few years your new battery will be around for many years.The Maypole even comes with a little tail with plug on connector one end and two eyelets the other to permanently attach to say a motorcycle battery and simply plug the charger off before you leave and plug in back on on return. My son in law has Maypole on his Honda tourer and does exactly the same job as the very expensive own brand he was about to buy.The same tails can be permanently attached to most batteries and as the unit also comes with a second tails with small crocodile clips you can attach it to charge a separate battery with no fuss.They are polarity protected and if connected wrong a symbol appears rather than the normal volts etc to let you know you have connected the thing up wrong.So all in all, yes there may be "better" if you believe all the blurb maintenance/full time chargers but these are all you need to keep a normal motorcycle/car/motorhome/tractor/boat/generator etc 12v battery in good shape while sitting for monthsThey will also charge most sizes of 12v systemIt's not often I write a review but these have proved very useful to us here as they do all we wish without wasting energy on heat and they are cheap enough to added to every item that is barely used.I started with one of these on a stand-by as every time there was an outage I had to get the car moved and jump leads connected to get it going and I dont have to buy a new battery every 2 years because of neglectI am impressedI have had a few of these Maypole units for a few years and non have failed or damaged a battery. All have been as should be

I already own a CTEK MXS 5.0 trickle charger, which I use on my wife's vehicle. After my 318D AGM battery gave up the ghost decently- due to lack of use during the pandemic as I work from home - and was replaced, I started shopping around for a cheaper trickle charger. The CTEK is excellent, but at around £60 I couldn't afford another one.I came cross this MayPole charger quite by accident, saw the good reviews and decided to give it a go.On opening the package, I was very impressed with the unit itself as well as the manual which was in very clear English. The unit looked and felt like a high quality product. The clear backlit display with the digital display of the charging voltage is a welcome feature (the CTEK has only LEDs). The unit comes with both crocodile clip and ring terminals (if you want a semi-permanent solution), and connects to the lead from the unit via a standard SAE connector (again a welcome change from the CTEK which uses it's own proprietary connector). I plugged it in, and given my AGM battery was relatively well charged to start with, it started charging at 'Stage 2' and within a few hours transitioned to the 'Stage 3' or float phase, with a float voltage of 13.8V being maintained consistently throughout (exactly as recommended for float charging of 6-cell AGM batteries). It's been rock solid since I plugged it in a week ago. I really don't see a difference between this MayPole and the CTEK chargers, except this one is about a third in price.Highly recommended. I wish I had come across this before I bought my CTEK. On another note, don't let your AGM battery lose charge - as they say it's next to impossible to recover these batteries once they've lost their charge beyond a certain threshold.

Modern battery and car technology requires something smarter than the old 12 volt tin boxes of yesteryear. There are lots on the market and I bought a 15 amp one from Lidl. Unfortunately the battery I tried to charge was too flat for it to 'recognise' meaning it would not charge and stayed at 0V amps.This clever device is plug and play in that you connect it up to the battery and it works out the perfect charging pattern for you to bring your battery back to 100%. It is so simple I don't have a clue what the 'MODE' button is for and I cannot see its purpose in the instructions either.The Mayfield, although Chinese made, is designed by a British company and so for the money it is amazing value. This will still 'trickle charge' a battery for your car or caravan but still has 4 amps to provide enough charge to get you going in a couple of hours.

Easy to use 12v/6v battery charger, just connect to the battery switch on, will automatically select battery type, or use the mode button to select battery type if is a AGM, or you want winter charging mode. Works well screen changes from green to red when charging, and shows a symbol of a battery same as on your phone for the state of charge, very pleased with it, but if your 12v battery is really flat, it tries to select 6v mode and will not charge the battery, the mode button will not work to change to 12v, I had to use my old charger to top it up first before it will charge, the battery was almost dead flat, for the price it is good value.

This must be the 5th charger I have bought. Okay, you would expect them to get better over the years....but this is perfect. It has a clear, digital indicator...it shows your battery strength...it can give a full charge or a trickle...and it can be used 'normally' with crocodile clips OR wired in.I wanted to be able to charge two cars...a Smart where the battery is very tricky to get to (its under the passenger footwell so the carpet has to be stripped back to get to the battery) and a Mercedes 220 where it's under the bonnet - but tight.This charger comes with two leads. One can be permanently wired in with a neat/safe socket left tucked away, ready for use. The other lead has quality, compact crocodiles.If you have a car where you want to wire the lead permanently to the battery....one at a time, you undo the nuts which loosening the existing battery leads, AND MAKING SURE that the positive (red) lead cannot touch any metal other than the positive battery terminal.Put the washer-sized connector over the exposed screw (making sure you connect red to red, black to black) and then FULLY tighten each nut back up. In some cars, my Smart included, this will be a fiddly job....you may need a flexible socket set. And you can very easily lose the nuts as you screw them off the battery terminals. Do the job slowly and in good light.Once connected up, gently trail the extension (which is about 35 cms long) to a point where your charger will connect to it as and when you want to charge the battery. Normally, the lead will be tucked neatly away with the charger only taken to the car when a charge is needed.The alternative method of connection is the usual crocodile. Again, there has been some thought. Modern engine bays can be very cluttered...these clips are small enough to go neatly on the battery terminal or have the negative fastened to a nearby earthing point.This is a lovely, practical product. Whoever created it deserves a medal.

First a bit of humour - I dont know who decides the review categories but warmth is a bit weird for this item - however I can report that the unit runs quite nicely without getting excessively warm.Now the review proper:I wanted to keep the battery of a van that would not be used for a few months charged, howeve that van is sitting outdoors on my drive in the damp, my existing charger had ventilation slots and would not have survived in those conditions and hence was only connected on dry days, then disconnected and placed indoors - this got tedious.I needed a battery charger that could be left semi-permantly under the bonnet of a vehicle in damp conditions so I bought this one.Its only protection is a loose-fitted carrier bag which is more to keep grime off it than moisure, it has been in use continuously for around 6 weeks during which time there has been plenty of rain plus snow and it is still functioning perfectly - job done.I like the in-line plug and socket on the output leads which also have in-line fuses and a choice of ring terminal or crocodile clip terminations, I have semi-permanently connected the ring terminals to the van (no chance of them accidentally falling off) and if I want to transfer the charger to my everyday vehicle (which doesn't do enough miles at the moment due to corona virus restrictions) I can just disconnect the output from the ring terminal lead, connect the crocodile clip lead, and temporarily connect it to my car. The connector design means the ring terminal lead can be safely left connected to the van battery waiting for the charger to return.So my impressions so far are entirely positive.

I spent ages looking at other battery chargers only to be put off by the reviews as people found issues with what they had purchased. After nearly giving up I came across this little gem. The reviews looked good and the charging amperage was enough, so I thought I would give it a go and I was not disappointed. Had a bit of a problem at first because one of the battery modes was for a type of battery called an AGM, or absorbed glass matt battery. Never heard of that before, but further research showed it was a sealed battery used in leisure craft including boats and if you shake one there should be no sloshing noises, because gel doesn't slosh around. I had a look at my boat battery, which had been supplied by a marine dealer and then tried shaking it a bit, no sloshing so all the boxes were ticked and this confirmed I had an AGM battery. So I set the charger to AGM mode and off it went. After an automatic battery condition test, charging started and around 6 hours later the display turned green and showed full charge.This works brilliantly and I can't recommend it enough. I was prompted to get a battery charger in the first place because Covid-19 means my boat is sitting in storage for much longer than normal and consequently the battery isn't getting any use.But both of my cars are in the same position, so just switched it to standard battery mode and off it goes again. Should have bought one of these ages ago!

I am loving these (Purchased 2 of them) no, they are only small and it does take a while to get a bigger battery fully charged, but no fear of over charging and they perform great.. using them to top up parked vehicles and condition the leisure battery of my camper when not in use..Have to update. Still a great bit of kit.“Intelligent” chargers like this will not charge a severely discharged battery, if you flatten a battery to below the chargers threshold, (normally around 9v) then you need a cheapo “dumb” charger to bang in volts. (I use a £10 one from Tesco as my backup for this)A typical 12v battery is considered fully discharged at 10.5v and anything below this is likely to damage the battery especially if left for any length of time. You should never leave a typical lead acid “car” battery discharged for any length of time..These maypole chargers are ideal for maintaining batteries that are stored or used infrequently or where an alarm etc is drawing current on a parked vehicle. They will fully charge a big battery over a longer period. If you want faster charging, especially on bigger batteries, then buy a bigger AH charger... Slow charging is much better for your battery...They automatically charge as needed and even if the mains power has been off, restart automatically too..I can’t fully comment on voltage reading accuracy as I don’t have a calibrated volt meter, one unit does over read slightly compared to the other and my volt meter.