Battery Chargers

If you invest in a quality battery you'd be crazy not to look after it with a quality battery charger.

battery business

We stock a massive range of battery chargers and have huge experience designing and installing chargers in power systems such as marine and dual battery applications.

Battery charging facts

ctek battery chargers

A well charged battery doesn’t deteriorate much at all.

A battery that is less than fully charged in always deteriorating.

So a 12V battery needs to be at 12.8V to be fully charged. A 12V battery reading 12V is empty. And if it’s reading anything below 12V it is into its reserve capacity and this will dramatically shorten its life.

If your battery spends days or weeks in this state it will never recover. So if you want the best your of your batteries you need to keep them charged - and this applies whether it’s a car, motorcycle, boat, mobility scooter, golf cart, laptop, camera or computer mouse.

If you leave at battery for any length of time will deteriorate unless there is a charger keeping it charged. This is especially relevant for applications like boats on moorings, motorcycles used on occasional weekends and vintage cars.

How battery chargers work

Modern battery chargers are typically smart or multi-stage chargers. They sense the resistance from battery and modify the amount given to try to squeeze as much charge in as possible.

You get what you pay for

The better quality your battery charger more likely it is to understand when battery has had enough and just needs to be trickled with current to maintain it.

Cheaper chargers bludgeon the battery into submission then don’t give up even when the battery has submitted.

Then precious electrolyte goes to vapour, the battery smells of rotten eggs, everything rusts and the battery has had it

The above is just the tip of the battery charging iceberg… there is a whole lot more to this which is one of the reasons we are here. Batteries and chargers can be a big investment and an expensive one if you get it wrong...

So if you have any questions about batteries and chargers call us on 02 9970 6999 - we love to talk batteries.

Car Battery Chargers

Not all chargers are the same... so how do you know what to buy?

battery business

As a rule of thumb you get what you pay for... so if you got your charger for $40 at a discount store chances are it's about as much use as a chocolate tea pot in Australia.

On the other hand if you spent $120 and got your charger from a specialist battery outlet then chances are you bought something really good.

The most important thing your battery charger has to do is reach exactly the right voltage during the charging cycle. If voltage is too high, your battery literally over-cooks and is useless. If voltage is too low, your battery doesn't charge properly and it deteriorates until it gradually becomes unusable.

We know chargers and batteries inside and out. We make sure you get the right charger to keep your battery in perfect condition.

Read more about our range of car battery chargers and Ctek car battery chargers

Marine Battery Chargers

sterling marine battery charger

We stock a wide range of quality boat battery chargers - Ctek, Durst, Sterling Pro-charge, Enerdrive and Xantrex - and we can source other brands if you need them.

All our chargers are intelligent - they only charge your battery when it needs charging and never over-charge it.

If you want reliable power from your boat batteries you need to use the right marine battery and charger combination.

If you're not sure where the problem lies, call us and we'll jump on board and test your system. In many cases where customers are having marine power issues we find it's the charger not the battery that's the problem.

We are very used to coming up with great solutions for our clients. For example for many small boat owners we install automatic charging between battery 1 and battery 2 which simplifies the charging process and saves trouble and headaches if you go forget.

Trickle battery chargers

motorcycle battery

This is commonly heard term which can mean 2 things.

Trickling is last stage a smart charger will do. Or a trickle battery charger can be a maintenance charger which checks your battery and nudges it putting in a bit of current from time to time as needed.

The trickle current doesn't overcharge the battery but just puts in enough to keep it in tip-top condition stopping your battery depositing sulphur onto the plates.

This means your battery be in good cond when you come back. Trickle chargers are ideal for boats on moorings, classic cars and motorcycles and although the charger is left on all time energy consumption is trivial.

We stock a wide range of trickle chargers to suit a wide range of applications

Solar battery chargers

solar battery charger

Solar chargers turn solar energy into battery charging current. If you have a good quality solar panel, and a suitable regulator to connect to your battery you can generate power from the sun.

The regulator sits between the solar panel and your battery battery and turns high voltage into a voltage suitable for the battery.

Better quality regulators check what the battery needs and supply that.

We have a range of suitable solar panels, regulators and batteries in stock. And we have huge experience designing and fitting solar energy systems in boats, houses, off-road vehicles. recreational vehicles and even small aircraft.

AA battery chargers

eneloop aa battery charger

Rechargeable AA batteries are either nickel cadmium (NiCd) or (NiMH). The more modern ones are nickel metal hydride.

Time to dispel a myth… the memory effect is almost gone from NiMH batteries so you don’t need to charge them overnight before you use them for the first time. Just unwrap and go.

Good small battery chargers sense the battery condition and supply the right amount of charge without over-cooking or under charging the battery.

The really good ones will treat each battery as an independent cell.

The cheap battery charger assumes all batteries are equal… the quality charger understands that different batteries have different needs.

And the really good ones have a cycle down and then re-charge - so they drain the battery fully and recharge it which is ideal for getting maximum life from it.

Some of the cheaper AA battery chargers charge your batteries really fast but also ruin them in the process - like anything you get what you pay for.

If you buy good quality NiMH AA batteries and charge them with a good charger you will get 2000 recharges and years and years of use from them.

Our advice?... buy once and buy properly.

Deep Cycle battery chargers

Because deep cycle batteries drop voltage very deeply a deep cycle battery charger must be high quality to know what the battery needs and look after it properly.

To give you an idea how important this is… one of the chargers in our workshop is worth $2000 - believe us - if we could have got away with a cheaper one we would have. And to give you an idea what a good quality charger can do… we fitted our a boat with of our chargers and some batteries.

The batteries were cycled daily for 6 months. We tested the batteries again and they still had 99.8% of the original charge.

So despite heavy use for 6 months the batteries had only lost 2/1000ths of their capacity. With a cheaper charger the batteries would have lost 500 times as much capacity in the same time period. Needless to say this customer has no doubt they made the right investment in the right charger.

Portable Power Packs

GoPuck is a portable lithium battery pack - great for providing power to your GoPro camera, iPad, recharging mobile phones (it'll charge 2 at once).

The 5x unit is 6600mah in capacity, which means it is approved for use in the cabin of an aircraft, weighs 172 grams, is 78mm square (and 24mm deep) and comes with cables to connect to micro usb, mini usb, Apple, Sony, Nokia, PSP and LG.

It's built by the people that make batteries for Formula 1, will deliver about 5 smartphone charges before it needs recharging, and has built-in Data Block technology to foil USB data hackers. You can order yours, and accessories like the belt clip, by ringing us on 02 9970 6996, 7 days a week.

Phone battery chargers

We stock iphone battery chargers, android phone battery chargers and even chargers for your old Nokia phone.

Our chargers are universal and will still work even when you upgrade your phone. We can supply charging solutions for your home and car. For example the enecharger range from eneloop has a range of USB adaptor plugs for any application.

No more needing to carry 4 chargers on holiday...we can replace most mobile phone and camera battery chargers from stock, whether you want to charge from the 12 volt socket in your car...or a mains plug...or both.

Camera battery chargers

We camera battery chargers to suit most cameras for example we have chargers for Olympus, Canon, Nikon, Fujifilm, Sony, Pentax Panasonic, Lumix, Sanyo, Kodak, and Reiko.

Our are univeral which means - one charger will work for mulptile cameras and camcorders. All you need to do is change the adaptor plate.

They are intelligent chargers so they cut off once the battery reaches capacity to avoid over-charging.

Chargers for power tools

We stock a range of aftermarket chargers for the most popular power tool brands, Bosch, AEG. DeWalt, Makita, Milwaukee and Pansonic.

We can also arrange to have your old charger fixed, or sometimes even construct a replacement for a charger that has gone completely. We can also test your charger, and your batteries, and let you know where a problem lies.

Hobby chargers

We carry chargers to look after typical hobby battery packs - NiCd, NiMh, Li-Ion, LiPo, SLA - and we're happy to source specialist chargers from our Australian and international suppliers.

12v Battery Chargers, 24v Battery Chargers, 36v Battery Chargers and 48v Battery Chargers

Sometimes in vehicles batteries are arranged in series to deliver 24, 36 or 48 volts.

One application would be for motors needing a lot of power - the higher voltage allows the user to use thinner cables despite the high power. So for example these you might need a 24 or 36v battery charger for ride on golf buggies, mobility scooters or electric wheelchairs.

You need to make sure your charger delivers the right charge. Because this is a specialist market the Battery Business buying power really comes into play - we sell a lot of these chargers and can get you a trace price.