Can a battery be on a trickle charger too long?

It has been a very long and painful winter here in Pennsylvania with more snow to come. I just realized that my car has been on the tender for several months now over this winter. Is there a limit to how long it can be on the tender? The car is not being started or driven at all. Thanks in advance.

 

No

 

We leave ours on the tender anytime it is in the garage. Our battery is over seven years old and works perfectly. Started it up in below freezing temps a few days and it didn't even hesitate. Was the same deal for our Motorcycle except for one season when I forgot to hook it up, andhad to buy a new battery in the spring.

Dave

 

had mine on trickle charger always when not in use..have driven her in months but did just start her right up this morning.backed her out of garage for 15 minutes..ran like a swiss clock..perfect.. no worries..

 

Had three cars on battery tenders (not trickle chargers) for 6 months, then driven, then 6 months again over a 5 year period. Never had a failure.

 

+1 on the tender. My battery (Interstate) is over Sven years now.

 

Need to understand the difference between a trickle charger and a smart charger (like a Battery Tender). A trickle charger will fry a battery, a smart charger will not. A trickle charger provides a constant "trickle" charge to the battery, even when fully charged. A smart charger will stop once the battery is at full charge.

 

Trickle chargers and battery tenders are, from what I've been told, designed to do just that.
To be sure I would google the brand and model number to get info specific to your charger if you don't have the paper work that came with it. A call to the manufacturer would get you a specific answer too.

 

The only thing that can get some batteries up to full charge is a proper charger. Tenders can maintain but can not get some to full charge. This is especially important with 14.7V Oddessy's etc.

 

YES !!! if it is an old charger, it is easy to fry a battery Most of the new chargers ( regardless of what they are called / purpose ) have a logic circuit ( smart ) built it that that monitors the charge and will turn on / off as necessary...

be aware that the type of battery construction that is being charged ( wet, gel, AGM etc) requires different rates / voltage to fully charge... a std antique charger designed for wet cell charging won't fully charge the newer batteries... the 12V marked on the outside of a battery is misleading when it comes to charging the newer types of batteries... best to get a charger that has a smart circuit that can be switched to the correct type of battery...any type of charger will get a flat battery out of trouble, in the long term mismatched battery and charger will lead to early failure

 

I had a 2amp trickle charger on my ferrari and forgot after 4weeks a big booooom at 6am i went in to the garage and there was acid all over the batterie compartment the side wall of the batterie was missing ,just for your info backing soda is the only thing to get rid of the acid i went to the store and got 10packs of it put it allover the batterie compartment let it soak up and hose it down,there was no rust or damage at all. So NO trickle charger only a smart charger it cost more but the only way to go my trickle charger is in the dump.

 

assuming this was a std wet cell type of battery... most likely the explosion was the result of the battery "gassing" / boiling off the electrolyte which also produces hydrogen ( which is extremely explosive ), hydrogen will accumulate in and around the near empty case waiting for a spark or heat ( from a dry battery ) to set things off... ( smart chargers will turn off when there is a problem with the battery )

new batteries ( wet cell ) do not gas and do not need water added... it is when they are approaching the end of their useful life when they start to need water replaced due to the heat created by charging...

best to replace the battery when it starts to need water even though it seems to be functioning properly... the loss of water also includes the acid which will corrode the area around the battery, causing more costly damage to the car than the price of a new battery...

 

While I can't speak for most Ferrari models, the owner's manual for my 360 does not recommend a flooded (conventional wet cell) battery for exactly the reasons you mention. Ferrari specifies an AGM battery, which is what I have in my car.

By the way, I park my car for most of the winter but I never use a battery maintainer or charger because of the very low self-discharge rate of a premium AGM battery. It starts just fine even after a couple of months of inactivity.

I think trying to save a hundred bucks is silly, especially when the battery is mounted in the passenger compartment of an aluminum car.

 

most cars have a built in battery condition monitor :=)

it is the electric clock... clocks need for the voltage to be within a certain range to maintain accuracy... failing batteries or under charged batteris ( although still functioning for starting ) drop their voltage out of spec for the electric clock... if the time needs to be reset frequently, the car battery is at the end of its' useful life...or something is causing it not to be in spec ( fully charged )...

 

On the general subject of these chargers, I've found nothing better than the stuff made for the marine industry. Selectable for flooded/gel/AGM, multi-stage charge regimes, build quality to a crazy environmental spec (think salt spray atmosphere). Cost is a few hundred but these things are all business. I swear by 'em now.

Edit: Multiple isolated outputs for multiple cars.

 

although the internal discharge rate of a battery is a valid point, a greater drain on a battery comes from the various memories, security systems, etc that need to be powered up while the car is not used that cause batteries to go flat... when the key is turned off only the engine is shut down, there is a lot of stuff that remains powered up, making the use of battery tenders wise...

 

Like Ron Popeil used to say... Set it and forget it !

Supposed to be, but it is not. (I have over 20 in my garage)
I had all kind of experiences. Good ones, flawless working and also not so... almost exploding batteries. Lost several new batteries for been attached to a Deltran battery tender. And sometimes the trickle charger stop working.
I recommend keep an eye on it.
Save-a-battery is very good, C-tek is not bad. Deltran... Will let you decide.

 

2amps isn't a trickle charger... Most trickle chargers are 500ma or so...

Most of the smart chargers that shut off are 2-3 amps I believe...

A car battery that says its 750 cca only has 100 amps or so of stored amperage...

Bo

 

Even if you have a smart battery tender, if the battery is a non-sealed wet cell type with removable caps, you should check/top up the electrolyte level every few months.

I use the Deltran type battery tenders and have left them on vehicles for years.
I did have one go bad and it just cooked the battery, but no problems since then.

 

Oops............. I think you have your terminology a little bit confused Here's car-battery 101.

Amps is a measure of the rate of flow of electricity, not storage capacity. You can get over 1000 amps from a car battery if you drop a wrench across both terminals, but it won't last for more than a few seconds.

CCA (cold cranking amps) is a measure of cranking performance at low temperatures; i.e. how many amps can a battery produce for 30 seconds at 0 degrees F before it drops below 7.2 volts.

CA (cranking amps) is the same thing, but measured at 0 degrees C.

Storage Capacity is measured in Amp-Hours (Ah). For a car battery it's usually not stated, but it's around 75 Ah for a normal car battery, meaning it can produce 75 amps for an hour. But saying that is misleading because the actual discharge is measured at 25 degrees C (pretty warm) over a period of 20 hours until the voltage reaches 10.5. The true storage capacity is quite dependent on discharge rate because the chemical reaction which produces the electricity has its limits and a storage battery will perform best if it's not discharged too rapidly.

Of course, storage capacity is much more important for things like marine "house" batteries or trolling motor "deep discharge" batteries which are often charged up and then used to power something for a while before being charged again. This is a task that a car starting battery is not designed for nor is it well suited to that particular task.

If you have a low rider with a big hydraulic system powered by batteries or a huge stereo system and you go to those noise contests, then you want a big bank of auxiliary batteries, probably of the marine "house battery" type.

But for a Ferrari starting battery, you want a battery with a good cranking amp rating as well as one designed not to leak or discharge dangerous gas. Typically that means an AGM type, the kind Ferrari specifies for my 360 and I think many other models as well. AGM batteries have many good points but one of the negative aspects of this type is that they are not at all tolerant of over-charging. So if you you use a battery tender with an AGM battery, be sure it's one of the "smart" ones, preferably with a selection just for AGM batteries. If in doubt, take a look at your local marine supply store for sophisticated battery chargers.

 

Living in Canada, all my vehicles that are not used stay on trickle chargers all winter-seems like all year now- but a really good trickle charger. I use C-TEC, and have never had any problems. That includes my 4 sports cars, Bobcat, and lawn equipment. I've heard of horror stories about car fires but never from anyone I know.

 

Reserve Capacity / RC is the terminology used in battery specs for the amount of stored power in it measured as Ah / ampere hours... the "hours" is at some low rate of use, usually something like 5 amperes per hour of drain... need to read the fine print to get the "hours"... it's similar to mpg for fuel rate... use it hard it won't last or use it slowly and it will last weeks... also when the RC is rated at 100 Ah not all of that is available to use at near full spec of typical "12V"... a battery is considered discharged at 10.5 volts which happens at 50% of the of the rated Ah... meaning that a 100Ah rating has only 50 Ah of use available before it is considered discharged... think fuel tank that will only allow to pick up / use half of its' capacity... it is confusing...

then complicate it by the internal design / purpose of the battery... the batteries for starting our cars do not care about RC but rather how much power they can deliver in a few seconds to start the engine... this skew in design also causes the battery to "crash" or fail quickly... think golf cart being able to go a round of golf or two before needing recharge...if it were equipped with car starting battery it would not last more than a hole or two before going flat... current production cars have a lot of stuff that stays powered up after the engine is switched off, draining the battery if the car is not used frequently... requiring that a battery maintainer be used for those not driving a car frequently...

also electronics are sensitive about the specs of power they get, as a battery discharges the voltage drops allowing for electronics to shut down... a starter doesn't care much about voltage allowing it use what ever is left as long as there are enough Watts ( grunt ) available...

a battery cannot be fully charged by driving around for a few minutes, the alternator supplies current at a fixed rate... the problem is the battery, as it charges the acceptance rate decreases... the car may have a 50 amp charger but the battery slows the amount of current it accepts as it fills which may be in the single digit rate as it approaches to full capacity....

the voltage marked on a battery is misleading when it comes to charging... different types of construction ( wet , gel, AGM etc ) require different voltages to be fully charged... an antique 12 volt charger or system may not be capable of fully charging the newer types of batteries which require higher voltages to be fully charged than an antique charger can supply... older 12V chargers may top out at 13.5 volts which may not be enough to get a newer battery that requires 16 volts to get to a full charge... newer battery chargers ( smart ) have logic circuits that allow to manually select the battery type being charged ( some are automatic ) which makes them manditory when charging batteries other that the std wet cell... this applies to the charging system in the car... dropping a high tech battery into a car with an antique charging system does not allow the high tech battery to be fully charged and get optimum use from it by early failure at greater expense. Some of the new high tech batteries have internal charging circuits built in to allow them to use an antique charging system.

there is more to selecting a battery than the 12V displayed on it...

 

You've got it backwards. Old chargers that have no regulation circuit are the ones that will overcharge batteries, and is where the term "trickle charger" was born. They can push the battery to 15 volts and higher. Too much for cranking type batteries.

So called "smart chargers" are nothing more than an old charger with a voltage regulator in them. Usually they will charge a starting battery to somewhere around. 14-14.5, and a deep cycle to 15-15.5.

All any battery maintainer has to do is pulse current into the battery in milliamps to keep the battery from sulfating, and is the main cause of battery failure. Those that have 7 years on their battery.....I do too, is because they're not using them. If they did, 2-5 years is still the rule for lead acids. It depends greatly on the amount of lead. Wet cell or AGM, they're the same.

 

Lots of good info here Jay, some well meaning but not so much. Tractor, mazda, Harley on Battery Tenders, Ferrari on C-tek (with pulse mode) all lead/acid. Tractor battery starting to go after five years. Harley battery going on seven years, mazda also seven which is only driven six months out of the year. Oops correction tractor only four years old. Battery Tenders never had a pulse mode in those days.


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Apparently it IS confusing, but not to everyone.

In fact Reserve Capacity (RC) is NOT measured in Ah. It is measured in minutes. It's the time, in minutes, it takes to discharge a battery down to 10.5 volts if it is discharged at a rate of 25 amps at 80 degrees F.