I am convinced that trickle charging a car that sits for a while kills the battery or its just not enough to keep the battery alive. I drive my car 2 times a month and the trickle charger is one of the best by Schumacher. Any thoughts? Years ago I thought I saw something you could add to the battery to keep it from deterorating.
I have them on my 3 cars, and motorcycle, Battery Tenders. They all keep the battery in top condition all winter, 3-4 months. Do you have a quality charger? Do you disconnect the battery during that time? There may be a drain that is more than the maintainer can keep up with. They only charge a fraction of an amp.
I use a Battery Tender Jr on the mower and a more modern multi-capable (standard, 12v, 6v, AGM, etc) unit on my motorcycle and have never had a problem. But those are "tenders" not trickle chargers. Old school trickle chargers can easily cook a battery. -rick
Tenders have made trickle chargers obsolete for the most part. Original Harley battery lasted 11yrs hooked to a BT Jr. Only changed it due to age & EFI (no bump start if no juice). Many batteries have been nuked by 'trickle' chargers over the years.
I had a Schumacker charger model 08-99000413 that someone 'gifted' me & it would not work-now I know why it was given to me!
Trickle chargers operate at a constant low amperage charge, and that is bad. Make sure to use a battery maintainer that cycles on and off. Charging produces explosive gas’s and that is dangerous
Like has been said, a trickle charger will cook a battery if left on for weeks or months, I use a battery tender on my 3 old cars and one on the zero turn mower. The batteries last for years. A tender turns off when the battery is up to full charge, a trickle charger does not.
Interesting. I had no idea a trickle charger could kill a battery. Don’t they automatically shut-off when fully charged?
I worked for a major truck manufacturer. We had 5 training center and each had 6 trucks. Conducting training meant key on for long periods without starting the engine. If the engine was started, it never ran for more that 10 minutes or so. Couple that with interior lights left on over a weekend and dead batteries were common. We had a variety of small chargers which were okay, but didn't last long. I did a deep dive into what was available to help rectify this problem. What I found was the Battery Tender brand battery maintainer. Not the cheapest of what was available, but they turned out to be the best. In the last 12 years I worked, I don't think we had one failure of a battery on a simulator and I really believe it was a defective battery. Never had to replace a Battery Tender.
The next to last sentence should read "In the last 12 years I worked, I think we had one failure of a battery......" The word "don't" shouldn't be there.
A decent battery tender should never harm your battery. I put all three of my cars on battery tenders over the winter months and my batteries aren't harmed or had their life shortened by using them. I did have one battery clip fall off during one winter, and the next spring the battery was dead, and had to be replaced. So I double check now to make sure when I close my trunk lid it doesn't pull on the cables and pull one off.
Is it a conventional wet-cell battery or the newer style AGM or gel cell battery? They each seem to have their own separate recommended procedures for proper charging.
I had been looking into a new charger. I did some reading on smart chargers. Seem to be the best of both worlds to charge a battery as well as maintain one. I guess they go into a “float” mode as the battery get full/filled. I’d suppose that’s what a tender does as well?
This is the charger I have. Its a lead acid battery. https://www.schumacherelectric.com/products/1-5a-6v-12v-fully-automatic-battery-maintainer/
The one we had in the school shop in 1962 didn't, The way it was explained to me it was used to slowly charge the batteries and the way it was set up we might have three or four batteries hooked up to it at one time. The theory at the time was that it was better for the battery to charge it slowly rather than use the higher amp fast charger provided that you had time to use it. I've known guys who used a trickle charger on a rig that sat out in the cold to keep the battery charged and compensate for the cold on vehicles and equipement that were used often but not every day though.
If it’s working properly, based on the description, you should be fine to just leave it on the battery.
A battery in a constant “charge” will end up cooking itself . what we do at work with forklift batteries that have sat at 1/2 charge or whatever below a full charge is to discharge the battery , then do a high amp charge to essentially overheat and cook the battery to burn off the sulfation from the lead plates , then discharge and a “proper charge “ start at high amp then scale back , high amp again , then scale back then finish off with a slow steady low amp charge . Sometimes this needs to be done 3-4 times for a battery to come back . Now we are dealing with $8000-15000 dollar batteries so any extra life we can pull out of these things is a bonus to the customer . with a standard 12v battery the same principals apply just a lower scale . storing a lead acid battery fully charged is key , the battery tenders or maintainers do this by very slowly charging the battery and then leaving it alone untill the battery naturally discharges , then the tender starts up and brings it back to full charge periodically. batteries are happiest when they are “ working “ so slight discharge and recharge cycles keep it happy and lasting as long as it can , batteries do not like being deep discharged all the time , stored at 1/2 capacity or left fully charged and not maintained . while the maintainers or tenders se great I’ve had 2 fail over the last 15 years with my old junk in the garage . what I started doing a couple years ago is fully charging the battery with a charger , then put the maintainer on , for maintenance!
I have a Deltran battery tender on my "tow hack" [this is a Solar motorcycle tender] The vehicle is used only a few times per year and the battery was purchased back in 2013 My other vehicle lives on a C-Tek battery tender 24/7
I've got a deep cell battery that's used for operating the hydraulic unit on my car lift. I've had it on a Battery Tender trickle charger constantly for the last 13+ years, except for when the lift is actually in use, and it's still going strong.
I am a "belt and suspenders" type of guy. I use a mixture of regular chargers on my vehicles when I go to Florida for the winter. I plug all of them into a couple of mechanical timers that turn them on for 15 minutes twice a day (I came up with these intervals after years of doing this). I haven't had a problem in the last 25 years. Before I started doing this, I boiled a couple of batteries with units that had gone bad.
The key is “tender” like others have said. Used a battery tender bank at work and have individual ones at home, easily made batteries last years longer on non daily drivers. Don’t overcharge a battery and make sure you don’t have a draw. I’ve been eyeing the Noco 4 bank tender……waiting for a sale.
That’s were I was watching it at, funny thing is a bought a GB70 last year and Amazon had a hard case (waterproof too) on a flash sale….cheaper then the factory soft case.
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