1.5 amp trickle charger for battery maintenance?

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I saw a Schumacher 1.5amp 6 and 12 volt trickle charger at Wal-Mart for $20...should I get it? Will this suffice for keeping the battery on my seasonally-stored Eclipse battery charged? I know it's kinda cheap, but I was just wondering if it'll do the job. Lemme know what ya think, thanks!
 
Providing it does'nt overcharge the battery over time there's no reason it won't keep it charged up. Depending on the length of time it will be inactive perhaps one that turns on & off as needed would be a wiser purchase.
 
If you store it outside you can get a VW solar panel on ebay for your $20 budget.

They stick them in new cars at the factory and dealer techs apparantly bring them home in their lunchboxes... 8 months later when the car is finally delivered. Meanwhile the car sits outside, content, with all its microchip doodads operational.
 
A cheap trickle charger will most certainly overcharge and ruin your battery. What you want is a FLOAT charger, one that shuts itself off when the battery is full and then charges again when the voltage drops.
 
Get a Vector or Black & Decker charger from Walmart (China Mart). But best is a BatteryMinder you can find on the web. Do not leave a trickle charger on for more than a day or two. Get a float charger or batter maintainer.
 
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If you store it outside you can get a VW solar panel on ebay for your $20 budget.

They stick them in new cars at the factory and dealer techs apparantly bring them home in their lunchboxes... 8 months later when the car is finally delivered. Meanwhile the car sits outside, content, with all its microchip doodads operational.




What Auto maker does this???
 
Lets also get the terms straight, and your use. I suggest a Battery Minder if you want to keep the battery charged for the whole off season and not worry. It will not really charge a discharged battery and is made to keep a charged battery fully charged. We call that a battery maintainer or float charger. A trickle charger is just a cheap 1-2 AMP charger that never shuts off. Good for charging a lawn tractor overnight, but never left connected for days.

The Vector chargers (or seem to be identical Black & Decker) chargers will charge and then 100% shutoff when done.

So what do you need?
 
I thought trickle charging and floating charge are the same thing? (At least according to wikipedia haha.)

Also, this $20 1.5amp charger has an automatic "off" feature when the battery is fully charged.

I'm a little too cheap to pay anything above $20, sorry.
 
you might not need anything either...

A cheapo trickle charger is likely OK, if you just use it intermittently and disconnect it the rest of the time. This way there is no chance of long-term overcharging, but yopu can keep your battery fully maintained and charged, which if you do too many short trips can be an issue...

JMH
 
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grab a 12v wall wart, 2 alligator clips from radioshack for $2 and youve got a trickle charger for $2.




Just make sure the "12V" wall-wart isn't one of those that puts out closer to 15V under no load--those will cause a fully-charged battery to gas excessively, making it lose water. A real problem if your battery isn't one that you can add water to...
 
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A trickle charger is just a cheap 1-2 AMP charger that never shuts off. Good for charging a lawn tractor overnight, but never left connected for days.




It's alright IF the charger is voltage regulated between 13.5 and 13.8 volts. Then you can leave it connected indefinitely without ruining the battery. But most of the cheap ones are not voltage regulated.

Right now I have a deep-cycle marine battery connected to a UPS that is float charging the battery at 13.8V. It's been that way for several months. No problems. No water loss.
 
Here's the charger I've been talking about:
http://www.jcwhitney.com/autoparts/Produ...0000922/c-10101
Wal-Mart has this thing for $18.50! WOW, that's less than 1/3 of the MSRP and less than 1/2 of JC Whitney!
smile.gif
 
That should be fine. I have another version of that which is designed to mount in the vehicle next to the battery. I don't use it that way.
 
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