Permanent connection for battery charger
 

MY11 D5 - looking to connect a trickle charger to the car - on a permanent plug in connection as compared to using crocodile clips as required.

Is the best place the live connection under the bonnet (top right hand corner) along with one of the earthing points on the side? Any issues with just unbolting the live connection in the car and putting the charger connection under it (the cable has a ring connector attached).

Best to disconnect the battery and wait a few minutes? Should anything need resetting afterwards (apart from clock and radio).

Many thanks.

Hi, do you have a tow bar with 13 pin electrics?

If so then pin 9 is a permanent live and I guess could be used for charging?

Also I believe the rear cargo cigar lighter socket is permanent 12v, I guess you could plug charger in there with the appropriate plug?

Hope this helps

John l

I am using a 10 watt solar panel that I bought off Amazon and an old solar regulator I had kicking around.

I did have it connected (plugged in) to the OBD2 socket as that has a perm live terminal but now have it into the rear 12v socket (also perm live) as my CFE+ is in the OBD2

The solar panel sits on top of the dash with a long lead to the back and just gets moved around/disconnected when I need to drive the car or end up parked in a different place.

It keeps the battery topped up to 100% (as shown by my Bluetooth battery monitor)
https://www.ctek.com/uk/products/car/ctx-battery-sense

Cheers

Dave

Electrically the connection under the bonnet is a good place but not one I'd use, there isn't much in the way of circuit protection between it and the battery so you'd have to be very careful about insulation and fuses.

I'd go for the fuse board at the RH side of the dash, just about everything in there is permanently live and I found the other day when looking for a switched live. Use a piggy-back or breakout fuse connector and depending on where you want the socket, you can run a cable through the grommet where the the bonnet release cable goes, maybe to the front grill?

I have used this method with a Ctek Smart charger (Swedish). The ground was clamped to the lifting point on engine and positive to the + connection terminal at the back of the engine bay fuze box. Car was on standby charge for four years and there were zero issues.