Help please! Trickle charge via cigar lighter socket? Berlingo diesel

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andymc
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Help please! Trickle charge via cigar lighter socket? Berlingo diesel

Post by andymc »

Hi, I'm posting on behalf of an elderly relative. She has a 52 plate diesel Berlingo, whose battery has gone flat since she went for cardiac surgery and rehab - she discovered this a day or two ago, on one of the first occasions she'd left the house since getting home.

Ordinarily this would be straightforward, but there are two complicating factors for her - first, the car is not at her home and not located somewhere that's handy for charging the battery from the mains. Secondly, she lives near Keswick - while her own house hasn't been flooded, one of her neighbours has ... as have any family members she could normally expect to help out. Lots of people are in crisis around there and it's not as simple as usual to get a car next to hers to jump-start it. Nor can she risk leaving the car with a window or the bonnet open, with it not being at her home.

I thought that a solar charger like this one - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003EDUSWU - might be a solution, but only if it's possible to charge the battery via the cigar lighter socket, so that the car can remain completely closed until it's able to be started and driven home. I don't know enough about the Berlingo to say whether this is possible. Can anyone confirm one way or another?
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Re: Help please! Trickle charge via cigar lighter socket? Berlingo diesel

Post by wheeler »

Solar chargers are not generally any good for recharging an already flat battery unless you have a really big one. They are desinged to maintain a charged battery & offset the normal drain & natural discharging of the battery. I suppose if you disconnected the battery from the car it would charge the battery but i would think it would take quite a long time. How old is the battery & how long has it been sitting ? It could be heavily sulphated. If its the original battery i probably wouldnt mess about & just stick a battery in it.
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Re: Help please! Trickle charge via cigar lighter socket? Berlingo diesel

Post by Hell Razor5543 »

I would not promise a trickle charger would work through the cigarette lighter. Citroen turn off the lighter when the ignition is off (certainly they did this on a 54 Picasso), and I don't know if a charge can get from the lighter to the battery.
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Re: Help please! Trickle charge via cigar lighter socket? Berlingo diesel

Post by andymc »

Thanks for the reply. I don't know how flat the battery is, i.e. whether it's totally drained or just lacking enough juice to turn the engine over. In the immediate term I can just suggest that she tries to get someone round to it with jump leads, but I don't know how soon she'll be able to get hold of someone. Her usual ports of call (family, neighbour, local garage) are all affected by flooding and she's not a member of any recovery organisation. I'm across the sea from her so can't scoot round myself.

She did mention that she's probably going to have to use the car for a lot more short trips from now on, so it could be a good idea to have a trickle charger anyway - so long as it actually can deliver the charge the way I'm talking about, through the cigar lighter (without leaving the key in the ignition). That's what I really need to know about the Berlingo - can this actually be done at all?

EDIT - apologies, I was typing this reply when the second response was posted. With this being a 52 reg Berlingo, is it likely that it has the same system as with the '04 Picasso? If so then this isn't a runner.
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Re: Help please! Trickle charge via cigar lighter socket? Berlingo diesel

Post by Hell Razor5543 »

The simple way to check (if there is enough power in the battery) is to try using the cigarette lighter with the ignition off. If it works, then the charger might also work. I will see if my 04 C5 will work the lighter, if that helps.
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Re: Help please! Trickle charge via cigar lighter socket? Berlingo diesel

Post by andymc »

Thank you very much, I'll pass that on.
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Re: Help please! Trickle charge via cigar lighter socket? Berlingo diesel

Post by BX »

I know that the picasso has the old trick of having two pisitions for the cig lighter socket fuse. One leaves it permanently live the other connects it to the acc position so you need the key turned to have it live. I know the 806/synergie has the same arrangement. I cannot remember byt i think that age of berlingo is the same. At least some C5s have a permanently live 12V socket in the centre console and the cig lighter is on the acc position. Most accessories will work in either socket but the cig lighter will only work in its own position
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Re: Help please! Trickle charge via cigar lighter socket? Berlingo diesel

Post by myglaren »

No chance of her borrowing a fully charged battery and charging hers up indoors - or even sourcing a second hand one from a scrapyard?
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Re: Help please! Trickle charge via cigar lighter socket? Berlingo diesel

Post by Hell Razor5543 »

Well, the cigarette light does not work on my C5 until the ignition is on. I don't know if that helps, but I recall that when I worked for Wincor Nixdorf, they used a special piece of equipment that plugged into the cigarette lighter and gave all the details of their work calls. The problem was that , if you did not unplug it from the lighter overnight, it drew so much power it was not uncommon for the engineers to have to jump start their cars. When the fleet brought in Xsara Picassos this problem went away, as the lighter gets switched off when the ignition is off.
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Re: Help please! Trickle charge via cigar lighter socket? Berlingo diesel

Post by old-un77 »

Hmmm! I made a post this Am which seems to have disappeared into the ether,

seems that the rear cig lighter is disconnected with ign off, due to( allegedly) the fridge in the boot draining the car battery on earlier models,

mines a '03

But.........
I often use my cig lighter socket to charge a spare battery, while running, via a lead fitted with diodes, to prevent feedback........
Bob
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