The first piece of advice that I was given when I recently joined this forum was that, given my low mileage, I should buy a Maypole MP7423 battery charger, which I did.

Being an ignoramus, I’ve checked out not only the instructions but several websites – wow, is the advice contradictory! And some of those YouTube tutorials: one had noisy background music that I had to mute, another’s sound was so low as to be difficult to listen to, with dark video of the engine bay and a charger dangling down the side of the car by its cable. And did someone really have the charger on at the mains when he was connecting the crocs?

Anyway, I’ve decided to fit the collars. Though it seems acceptable to put the negative on the battery, best practice appears to be fitting it some distance away. A vintage-car enthusiast who bought a basic charger from me the other day recommended I should use the bolt (battery earth?) under the bracket-thingy on the far left, but I’m thinking about using the unpainted chassis bolt on the right, if only because I can thread the cable neatishly to it.

Which brings me to my main question: how best to secure the cable from the collars to the charger when they’re not in use – otherwise they’ll be inclined to dangle. I thought of coiling it up and securing it with Velcro – and uncoiling it before use. (Years ago, I was advised by a technician at work to completely uncoil an electric cable lest it overheat.)

And rather than attach the Maypole to check the battery charge, is it worth getting a cigarette-lighter voltmeter?

Otherwise, what sort of warnings might I expect if the battery is getting low – I gather that stop-start is disabled (which I’m doing much of the time anyway?

Marlburian
(Ford Fiesta Ecoboost 2021)

 

Personally when I’m charging using the crocodile clips I connect on to the positive battery terminal and the negative where it connects to the car body as per your photo. That way it keeps the battery status monitor happy.

if I was going to use a comfort connector then Id probably try and replicate the same connection. But positive terminal and any good connection to the car body ( local to the battery) would be fine.