Hello Thank you for accepting me on this forum, I need advice on recommendations on a 24v battery charger and booster, does anybody have any recommendations I have a DAF CF65. 18tonne lorry, (220 6.7 litre engine I think) , as I use the lorry for events which are cancelled this year I’ve struggled to keep the lorry charged, so I would like to purchase a heavy duty charger and booster, I have mains electricity near Where the lorry is kept. I don’t have a huge budget, I was hoping to spend no more than £300 if possible. There are so many different ones available at different price ranges, so thought it was probably a good idea to give some advice from some people who already own one, I’m happy for the size of charger to need to give a charge first prior to using the boost function. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
Tom
If you are having to leave a vehicle long enough for the batteries to discharge its not going to do the rest of the truck much good , I would have thought giving the truck a regular run to keep things working and the batteries topped up .
nothing worse than taking a motor out that has sat for a while.
I have one of these for the last 3 years , max boost is 180 amps so you would need to put some charge in the battery first .
machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke- … ercharger/
I know there’s not much to go wrong with battery chargers but most Clarke stuff is crap .
I’ve had a Absaar 12 volt 20 yrs and a 24 volt 35 yrs plus they’ve both been left on run over dropped thrown ect ect and still work 
I recommend going to chat with your local auto electrical specialist. The Durite brand make a cheap 12 volt charger which can be left permanently connected while parked . This will ‘switch on and off’ automatically to keep the battery charged. IIRC there is a 24 volt version but two 12 volt ones work out cheaper. These should prevent the need for a more expensive boost start charger.
Disconnect both batteries, remove from vehicle, fully charge each battery, find somewhere dry to store them until you need them, do not put them on to a concrete floor.
If you are definitely standing it for some time taking the batteries off, or at least disconnecting, is the best idea. We have the same issue as you, marquee hire, and have stood one truck and kept the other on as we do some haulage, and the odd marquee. We have 2 similar MANs and one eats batteries but cannot trace the leak, even put an ammeter in the line which shows nothing and then one day you go to it and dead flat so assumed it is something randomly staying on. The other one is on original 2002 (yes 2002) batteries and will hold charge for weeks. As regards chargers, although we have a “proper” boost charger we use cheap chinese trickle chargers to keep the batteries topped up, they work OK for that purpose. For £13-99 a go they have lasted a year so far and autodetect 24v /12v etc.
Sorry to contradict biggriffin but I believe the concrete floor thing is not an issue with modern batteries.
manski:
If you are definitely standing it for some time taking the batteries off, or at least disconnecting, is the best idea. We have the same issue as you, marquee hire, and have stood one truck and kept the other on as we do some haulage, and the odd marquee. We have 2 similar MANs and one eats batteries but cannot trace the leak, even put an ammeter in the line which shows nothing and then one day you go to it and dead flat so assumed it is something randomly staying on. The other one is on original 2002 (yes 2002) batteries and will hold charge for weeks. As regards chargers, although we have a “proper” boost charger we use cheap chinese trickle chargers to keep the batteries topped up, they work OK for that purpose. For £13-99 a go they have lasted a year so far
Sorry to contradict biggriffin but I believe the concrete floor thing is not an issue with modern batteries.
Sounds good advice to me.
Disconnect batteries, cheap trickle charger to keep them topped up.
And how old is Big Griffin? 
mcgill.ca/oss/article/gener … d-concrete
If the vehicle is old enough to have an analogue tachograph then unless it is set to bed for both drivers then the batteries will drain because the stylus for activity is still vibrating. If you listen very carefully you can just hear that something is happening.
CTek MXT 4.0 is the shizz for maintenance charging don’t bother with anything else it will keep the tacho happy. All those big shiny chinesium metal box things on wheels are hopeless really.