Charging battery in car when stored

[Jimbo]

I just purchase a Ctek mxs 5.0 to keep my battery charged while away with work. Am i able to charge the battery and use all of the smart charges functions with the battery still fully attached to the car? I can disconnect it but i prefer not to because it is in the boot (R33 skyline) and a pain to take out. Also i hate reprogramming the stereo every time i want to go for a drive.
The only problem i see is that there is something parasitic that is slowly draining the battery (500cca supercharge Gold) over a few weeks of not running. The patrol has a 700cca supercharge gold but always seems fine when i get back.

Ideas?

[chimpboy]

I have a different brand of smart charger so I don't know what functions you might mean... but fwiw I use mine when the battery is still fully hooked up to the car. Mine might be more basic than yours - it basically just has a "charge" mode for a battery that's low and then a "maintain" mode that it switches to automatically. I think the "maintain" mode is just a pulsed current sort of deal. It doesn't seem to cause any problems leaving the battery in place.

In principle I can't see why a small drain would be a problem as a smart charger is just responding to the battery's condition at any moment.

[drivesafe]

Hi Jimbo and just hook it up and forget about it.

You will stuff the battery itself before you will harm any of the vehicle’s electronics, if that’s what you are worried about.

[rockcrawler31]

In my basic understanding of it, the high current pulses won't affect the system because A. they're high current not high voltage and within the kind of current that an alternator would put out anyway, and B. The battery is a buffer to the system anyway. Does that sound right drivwesafe?

[-Scott-]

A battery can be considered to be a large shunt capacitor - any high current short duration pulses shunt charge into the capacitor (battery) with negligible effect on system voltage.

Any commercially designed electronics will easily cope with any voltage "spike" that makes it past the battery.

Or, as Milo put it, the battery is a buffer. You'll be fine.

[Jimbo]

I have been using the ctek successfully for a while now. I was initially concerned that the charger wouldn't go onto trickle/float charge mode with a parasitic draw on the system but all is good.

[lancalot76]

i use a battery fighter charger works real well on the boat when its stored i think they are about 80 bucks got mine from battery world

[gu town]

I use my c-tek with battery in place with no stress.

Keep in mind your ventilation when charging a battery. You might well end up with cabin full of explosive gas when you come back.