sorry for the stupid question, it's my first winter with the car.

I have the ctek/Porsche charger. I wanted to put the "rings" on the battery as the most secure connection for trickle charging. The manual doesn't list that as a choice for a battery that is still in the car. I've connected it this way anyway. If anyone knows that this is the WRONG and potentially dangerous way to do it - please post asap, lol!

 

Hey Asher,

You should be fine. I assume you mean connect the charger directly to the battery posts.

I did the same thing last year during winter and had no issues.

Hope all is well.

 

I have the Ctek 7002 and mounted the pigtail directly to the battery and LEAVE it there all the time. When I want to charge the battery I just plug in the quick connect to complete the connection.

I'm not sure which Ctek Porsche uses but Ctek has been using the quick connect system for awhile.

 

I bought the cigarette adapter connector. Hope that does the job just as well.

 

yeah that's what I meant, connecting both rings directly to the battery (instead of putting the negative on the chassis as indicated in the manual) while the battery is still in the car and connected to the car.

All is well, hope the same goes for you.

 

i use the cig adaptor, works great w/o issues

 

The reason the chassis connection is recommended, is the manufacturer of the charger is concerned that some customers won't be able to tell which terminal is positive and which is negative. The chassis of the car is hard to mis-identify. If you follow instructions and connect the negative charging lead to the chassis, the worst that can happen is the positive charging lead could be mistakenly connected to the negative battery terminal and the charger would be shorted. Since the chargers are protected against this, it's no big deal. If you connect both leads to the battery, mis-identification leads to applying 12 Volts to the charger in reverse, which is much harder to protect against or if the battery is totally dead, the battery and the electrical system would be charged up in reverse which would be really expensive.

In short, pun intended, if you identify the terminals correctly, you can attach directly to the battery with good results.
Cheers

 

You should put the negative on the chassis for ground. When I put mine on both posts on the battery, it wouldn't show full when battery being charged. After I put the negative on chassis, the green full light lights up in a day or so.

 

The negative terminal and the chassis should be electrically identical. I wonder if the battery just needed more time to get to full charge. (?)
Cheers

 

thanks beepbeep and everyone else of course. My charger showed "full" the next morning so I don't think it's an issue with hooking directly to the battery. This thing is actually very convenient, I'll just leave the "dongle" on the battery and hook it up every year as I've done this year. yay, CTEK!

 

Just bought a CTEK 3300 for my Porsche Turbo 2003 and had the same question(s). So you'all think connecting both CTEK terminals directly to the appropriate Battery terminal works fine. That is good to know. I did just that ( after I found out that my cigarette lighter socket seems not to work - will will figure that one out one of these days). But... the CTEK is getting REALLY HOT. Now I am sure some heat is to be expected especially when the charger goes through it's initial charging phase but I would say it is quite HOT to the touch. Has anybody noticed that and is that normal?
And, if anybody has suggestions as to what could be wrong with the cigarette lighter socket and what to do / check.. I am listening :-)

 

Connecting directly to the battery terminals using the red lead to positive and black to negative should be OK. I would monitor the charger to see if it changes to fully charged and then it should cool down. I purchased a new car and it took three full days of charging to fully charge the battery.

You should check the fuze panel for the lighter fuze to see if it has blown.
That happened to me once and I found a dime in the lighter socket that kept blowing the fuze.
Good Luck.

 

please be carfull , the workshop i used to fix my car did a wrong connection to charge my battery and that cause me DME damage !!!! just read the instructions in the book ..

good luck bro ..

 

I like the cig charger connector too, much easiler

 

I did the battery tender plug hookup under the clamp bolt nuts so all that is required is lifting the front hood & plugging in. Works great.