CTEK smart battery maintenance

Everything you need to know about motorcycle battery maintenance

Flat batteries are a motorcyclist’s worst nightmare, often striking at the worst times. With modern bikes relying on advanced electronics, proper battery maintenance is crucial to avoid breakdowns and extend battery life. Enter the CTEK CT5 Powersport Smart Charger – a game-changing tool designed to keep your motorcycle battery in peak condition, ready to roar whenever you are. Discover how this easy-to-use device can save you time, money, and frustration while ensuring your next ride starts without a hitch.

You’re killing your motorcycle & don’t even know it! Here’s the solution…

Battery failure

If you look at the statistics, battery failure is often considered the number one cause for breakdowns around the world. This is both a big cost for possible call outs to get you home but also in the cost of new and replacement batteries due to failure from lack of maintenance. Not to mention the frustration, wasted time and disappointment of not having a reliable vehicle.

Our modern vehicles have pretty complex and sensitive electrical equipment that constantly draws current from the battery, which means there is an ever-increasing number of mechanical faults that are battery related. The good news is that the expense and inconvenience of battery failure is totally avoidable and can be heavily reduced by regular battery maintenance.

In this article I’m going to share one of my most recommended garage items. I’ve been using these CTEK smart chargers for near on 15 years now. An easy way to explain why is that a simply £65 ish can extend battery life by 3 times – this means the unit literally pays for itself and can continue to save you money in the long run!

Flat battery – jump start it?

Yes but…Did you know a normal jump start can actually damage your long-term battery health?
I know I didn’t know this until I started swotting up. The intense surge a traditional jump pack gives can actually have detrimental implications for your long-term battery health. Plus with modern vehicle electrics the surge in power can damage electrical systems too. This is just yet another reason why we should be working to reduce the frequency of a flat or unhealthy battery.

Let’s start by looking at how a battery works

I’m going to simplify how a battery works to make it far easier to understand. Let’s start with a led acid battery. Inside there are plates of lead and sulphuric acid. When you don’t look after your battery, or it sits still, or its got loads of charge lost and then full charge, all those things that hurt a battery. The plates that are in the battery will get sulphur crystals on them from the sulphuric acid. When you get a plate with crystals on it, that bit of plate becomes useless. It can no longer hold change and no longer help the battery do what it needs to do for battery performance. You’ve basically lost part of the capacity of your battery.

Additionally, if you were to picture a pint glass, bear with me, and fill it with a muddy water mix which has lots of particles in it. If you leave that for a period of time it will settle and separate. And that is a similar thing that is going on in your battery, and when that happens you lose your performance again. So when you start to bring in products like the CTEK charger which are smart chargers that will actually send messages to the battery to work out what condition it is in, and then react accordingly. It will send forces that will break up those crystals, it will stir up the murky water. Obviously I’m simplifying this. But in that maintenance programme that the smart chargers are on, it will actually fix and maintain, and keep your battery health going.

Setting the scene – you bike won’t start

It’s a beautiful day, the sun is shining and you’re off for a ride. What is the most disappointing thing that could happen? Finding you have a flat battery!

With a CT5 POWERSPORT here’s how to:

• never face a flat battery again
• make your battery last considerably longer and perform more reliably
• save you money

Introducing the CTEK CT5 POWERSPORT providing fully automatic charging for a range of vehicles.

With busy lives, winter, injury or just life taking over seeing many motorcycles and cars parked up for prolonged periods of time keeping their battery health up is important for a few reasons:

• ensuring the vehicle will start when you decide to use it
• keeping the battery health up and charged to capacity
• helping ensure longevity of the battery
• guaranteeing your battery is ready to go when you are

Unfortunately, if left unused a battery will lose charge and when a battery loses is full charge it dramatically reduces the long-term life of the unit – picture the lead disks and pint of water mentioned about regarding battery health.

How to use a smart charger

The CTEK devices are designed to live on your battery when not in use. They are perfectly engineered to provide the optimal level of current to keep the battery life in the ready and happy range. It’s actually possible to keep a battery running for many years longer when properly maintained with a CTEK too. That is a big saving.

These chargers are easy to connect, spark proof and reverse polarity protected, so you can use them unsupervised and there’s no need to even disconnect it from the battery – simply ‘plug and play’ and the charger will do the rest. My recommendation is to install two pigtails to the battery, red to positive, black to negative. This little pigtail can then be left conveniently located on the bike ready to plug in when you park up.

All CTEK battery chargers are approved for outdoor use (IP65 and IP44). If you’re using a cheaper rival and you’re using a battery charger outdoors, you must use a charger that’s approved for outdoor use or you could run into trouble.

Why battery charging should be on your maintenance list

As vehicle technology continues to develop, more and more strain is placed on the battery. As a result, battery charging has become an essential part of bike and car maintenance which should be considered as important as checking tyre pressures and oil levels.

There are various types of battery charger currently available – mostly smart chargers and trickle chargers. However, smart chargers present a much safer and efficient way of maintaining and prolonging the life of the battery.

How a trickle charger works and why you don’t want one

With a trickle charger once a battery has reached its optimum charge levels, a trickle charger will simply send in a level of charge for a certain amount of time and then switch itself off. It will continually repeating the process until it is removed from the battery. This method of battery charging can potentially overcharge the battery, causing it to dry out or even start to gas, and could ultimately kill the battery.

This is why I recommend a smart charger.

How a CTEK smart charger works

CTEK’s smart chargers move into a pulse maintenance mode once the battery is fully charged. Rather than sending in a charge and estimating what the battery needs, a CTEK charger will stay in constant communication with the battery, reacting and charging only when it is needed.

In pulse maintenance mode, the battery will be allowed to naturally self-discharge to a certain level before being fully charged once again. Not only does this avoid the risk of overcharging but, as the battery is being exercised as it would be during normal use, the lifespan of the battery is extended considerably.

CTEK’s unique range of smart chargers optimise the performance of lead-acid batteries through accurate readings of a battery’s charge levels, then ensuring the appropriate action is taken so the battery is always ready for use.

CTEK chargers extend the battery’s life and eliminates the problem of battery failure. More importantly, it makes sure that vehicles start first time, every time and the problem of battery failure is eliminated.

What vehicles can CTEK work on?

CTEK designs and manufactures a range of smart battery chargers and accessories to suit all types of lead-acid batteries for vehicles including cars, bikes / motorcycles, marine vessels, agricultural vehicles and even lawnmowers.

Why CTEK?

They are the leaders in the market, and they’ve got years of R&D to ensure the optimum performance int heir produces. The most important property of a battery charger is that it reaches the exact voltage during the charging cycle. Ge this wrong and your battery is in trouble. If the voltage is too high, the battery boils. The battery then becomes unusable due to dried-out cells and crevice corrosion, which occur when there’s high acid concentration and overheating during charging. If the voltage is too low, you end up with an incompletely charged battery that will lose more and more capacity until it gradually becomes unusable.

CTEK have designed a range of products fit for purpose. Many times a vehicle is going to be parked outside when needing charging, leaving you at risk with the elements and electrical products. However, CTEK know battery chargers are often used in damp and dusty environments, such as:

• Outdoors
• In garages
• On caravans and campers
• Around harbours and on boats

Smart chargers have three advanced modes

The CT5 POWERSPORT has been designed specifically to charge and maintain powersport batteries using advanced technology to give you three fully automatic charging and maintenance programs:

• Normal
• AGM
• Recond

Normal – this is for living on your battery and maintains the correct charge to be ready for action. The units come with small battery connections that can be fitted and left discreetly on the bike. You can then clip the CTEK on and off in seconds giving you no excuses to not pop it on when you park up.
Recond – if your battery has run flat or is losing charge rapidly, the CTEK CT5 POWERSPORT can be put on an intelligent mode than will effectively recondition your battery. It’s not guaranteed to bring it back to live but I’ve many, many a battery living on after a CTEK recond.

What is the CTEK CT5 Powersport

The CT5 is a smart charger to optimise the performance of lead-acid batteries through accurate readings of a battery’s charge levels, then ensuring the appropriate action is taken so the battery is always ready for use. It effectively charges and maintains your battery when not in use.

CTEK CT5 Powersport Ease of use

Attached using two battery connections you simply install these once and you’re then good to go. You can leave it on for endless amounts of time. I’ve left my Harley for 10 months before and she started first turn over having had the CTEK CT5 POWERSPORT on to keep the battery maintained and ready for action.

The Techy Bits – CTEK CT5 Powersport (40-138) General Information
Comfort Connect compatible: Yes.
Rated voltage: 220-240v AC 50-60Hz.
Charging current: 2.3 amps.
Current, mains: 0.5 amps RMS (at full charge current).
Back current drain: <1.5 Ah/month.
Ambient temperature: -20 deg.C to +50 deg.C. Output power is reduced automatically at high temperature.
Battery types: All types of 12v lead acid batteries (wet, MF, GEL, Ca/Ca and AGM).
Battery capacity: 5-25Ah
Dimensions: 292 x 132 x 102 mm
Insulation class: IP65.
In the EU, all battery chargers must be CE marked. Third party testing and approval of equipment is required for your safety.

Limitations of the powersport

Honestly, as someone who has owned a CTEK charger for over 15 years with the original unit still working, I have not found a single limitation. Having correctly maintained batteries with a CTEK unit installed on each vehicle, I would never be without them.

Maybe the limitation is on the human. If you forget to connect your CTEK you’re going to regret it….

How much is a CTEK smart charger?

You’re looking at £60-75 for a unit that comes with a warranty and is likely to last 10 plus years. You’ll have a ready for action bike or car and the piece of mind that you’re properly maintaining them. Avoiding the disappointment of a ‘sputter, sputter, sputter’ is worth every penny. Also, by monitoring your battery condition, you can prevent a deep discharge occurring, which will result in loss of performance and early replacement.

See CTEK chargers on Amazon in the link below
https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/thegirlonabike/list/1F6XBS7I18I8D?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_aipsflist_EM3S9G3A0MEE23V6FBDS

Tips From Experience

The sooner you get one the sooner you’ll keep your battery health up
Get in the habit of having it permanently connected when parked up, it’s designed to be so it won’t over or under charge.
It’s kind of magic how a totally dead battery that you thought was only destined for scrap can be fully reconditioned and live on reliably after a CT5 revamp – saves you money on battery’s.

Overall Rating of the CTEK CT5 Powersport

Small but highly powerful and practical device giving you the confidence that you’re ride will be ready to go when you are. Looks after your battery for the longest life possible to give the most reliable performance so that nothing can come between you and that adventure. Must have for anyone with a vehicle with a battery!

If you’re new to my page – it’s more than just dirt bike riding and racing, I’m on a mission to prove that nothing is impossible if you want it bad enough. See more about my story plus read about my life changing accident, which started it all.

You can find me Vanessa, The Girl On A Bike over on Threads, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok and YouTube, and www.thegirlonabike.com.