Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:39:32 -0800
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: Little problem with trickle charger
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Hey I'm a Youngster !
Battery charges just aren't meant to stay connected to 'the chargee' when
not charging.
I suppose I leave one connected to a battery but not plugged into 110AC
sometimes, but normally, I don't.
obvisouly, the simple answer is 'well, don't do that.'
there's no reason to leave the charger connected to the battery via the cig
light plug, when no charnging is happening, after all.
I wouldn't want the wire hanging from the dash myself.
fwiw, I wired a 1 amp chager to a vanagon battery, and just left it
connected to the battery terminals.
it wasn't 'smart enough' to have an LED or anything, but I don't think it
drained the battery, by leaving it connected to the battery terminals full
time. That was just a van in the shop that I ran the high amp stereo in a
lot, not a runner. But I don't think there was a prob leaving it connected.
It also might just be that the cig lighter plug is 'seeing' the 12 volts of
the battery it's connected to, and thus the LED is on. It may not be sucking
power out of the battery at all. I'd be surprised if it did, Pilgrim.
Scott
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rocket J Squirrel" <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 4:51 PM
Subject: Re: Little problem with trickle charger
> Welp, mighty good questions, ya got there, youngster.
>
> The answers are, of course, "it depends."
>
> Without knowing the design of the charger, a fellow can't easily know how
> much current it parasites off the battery when unpowered. Now, one would
> think, one would /hope/ that the designer said to hisself, "self, I'd best
> make sure that my customers' batteries are not discharged if there is a
> power outage at his or her house."
>
> But one never knows, does one?
>
> Use an ammeter.
>
> A diode would take away 0.5 to 0.6V from the charge voltage, which is
> pretty significant when considering how much voltage a battery needs in
> order to be fully charged. 12.6V is full charge. 12.0V ain't.
>
> --
> Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
> 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
> 74 Westrailia: (Ladybug Trailer company, San Juan Capistrano, Calif.)
> Bend, OR
> KG6RCR
>
>
>
> On 11/13/2009 4:35 PM Jim Felder wrote:
>
>> About a month ago, I mated a trickle charger with a cig lighter plug
>> so I could plug up the westy electrical socket to a power source, plug
>> the trickle charger in to the interior 110v socket, and plug the cig
>> lighter plug into the receptacle on the bulkhead under the seat. No
>> muss, no fuss, but not quite permanently wired in. That turned out to
>> be a good thing, as I noticed on a recent camping trip that even with
>> the charger unplugged from the interior 110 receptacle, the LED light
>> on the charger glowed when the setup was plugged into the cig lighter
>> socket. That means that the battery was feeding the charger.
>>
>> Is there any significant current loss going backward through the
>> charger? Is it just running the LED, or is it running down my battery?
>> I presume the proper diode in the proper place would stop this. Can
>> anyone describe what I should to do modify?
>>
>> Jim
>>
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