Can you overcharge a battery with trickle charger

[BigEddy]

Can a 1 amp trickle charger overcharge a battery? After a 4 hour power outage this weekend (while we were away) I want to use a 12volt bilge pump as a backup for my sump pump, and was thinking of hooking up a small trickle charger to keep it topped off. Most of the automatic chargers will charge and stop, but won't restart later, whereas the trickle charger just keeps trickling.

thoughts?

[JerryG]

There are small maintainers that will keep the battery charged, but not over charge it. I have had one on my generator battery for 4 years and never had any problems.

[Bird]

Yep, like Jerry said, buy one that's made for that purpose.

[bczoom]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Yep, like Jerry said, buy one that's made for that purpose. )</font>

I do what Jerry and Bird said.
An alternative is to put your trickle charger on a 24 hour timer (if you have one laying around) and set it to come on for an hour a day. If you don't have a timer, I would buy the tender instead.

[notamustang]

If you are going to get a charger and leave it conected make sure that the charger is rated for constant conection. I never thought about it but when I bought my quad several diferent people (dealer and owners) suggested that I get one that is rated for constant use. I think the price diference was 5 bucks. May or not make a diference it might just be because the batterys are so much smaller than a car or deep cycle battery.

[GaryE]

Here is another option. No worries if power goes out for weeks.

Solar charger

[thcri]

I have an older trickle charger. The last thing you ever want to do is to leave it hooked to a battery when the power goes out. It will along alot of other battery chargers actually drain the battery. So get one that is designed to be on all the time. I also believe alot of the newer ones will not actaully drain a battery anymore.

murph

[Av8r3400]

I have a couple of "Battery Tenders" which I use for maintaining the batteries on the motorcycles over the winter. they work good and can be left hooked up basically indefinately. Cost was about $20.

[slowzuki]

El cheapo trickle chargers will overcharge. I left one on a battery by accident and came into the garage a week later. I could hear a sizzling noise and traced it to the very warm battery that was boiling either by some chemical reaction inside or just plain too hot.

I unplugged it and left it alone until it cooled as I have heard of overcharged batteries bursting and spewing acid.

[Soundguy]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I have an older trickle charger. The last thing you ever want to do is to leave it hooked to a battery when the power goes out. It will along alot of other battery chargers actually drain the battery. So get one that is designed to be on all the time. I also believe alot of the newer ones will not actaully drain a battery anymore )</font>

I fthe old unit is diode isolated.. it won't discharge the battery when not running, unless one or more of the diodes are not functioning correctly (leaky) .. etc. There might also be some picoamps of back current flow across those silicon junctions.. but nothing measurable with any kind of test equipment the average person is going to own.

Soundguy