As Halloween draws closer, there’s one thing we’re more afraid of than ghouls and goblins – and that’s dead batteries! Whether you’re storing a battery for just a few days or for a longer term, trickle charging prevents dead batteries from taking over.
What is Trickle Charging?
Based on the internal chemistry of a battery, batteries naturally lose charge (self-discharge) either when connected or unconnected to a circuit. Trickle charging essentially keeps a battery charged at a rate equal to its discharge – usually at small amounts of power and when the battery is not under a load.
The two main benefits of trickle charging are keeping a battery at full charge and preventing batteries from dying during storage. Charging batteries from a completely dead state can severely shorten the life of the battery.
When to Trickle Charge?
Trickle charging can maintain a single battery or multiple battery systems. In the case of keeping a single 12V battery charged up to a week, a 5W Solar Battery Trickle Charger Maintainer is a great choice for battery maintenance on land and marine vehicles. For anything greater than a week, we recommend disconnecting the battery for long term storage or upgrading to a Solar Kit.
In an off-grid solar system, charge controllers actively trickle charge single or multiple batteries from solar panels. This ensures that the batteries are kept fully charged and ready when you need it.
Trickle Charging Tips!
Single 12V Battery:
Use a Trickle Battery Charger Maintainer in the short term. As solar energy is directly fed to a battery, we recommend using the smallest wattage possible for your specific battery to prevent overcharging.
| <125 Ah Battery | 5W Trickle Battery Charger |
| 125 – 200 Ah Battery | 10W Trickle Battery Charger |
| >200 Ah Battery | 16W Trickle Battery Charger |
Off-grid Solar System with Single or Multiple Batteries:
Tip #1 Make sure the charge controller setting is correct for your battery type!
Selecting the correct battery on our charge controllers can optimize charging for your type of battery.
Tip #2 Minimize the Boost Charging Stage on your charge controller.
The Boost stage maintains a full voltage charge for 2 hours by default. Decreasing the Boost stage will allow full batteries to switch to trickle charging in less time and decrease the amount of voltage coming in.
Tip #3 For off-grid systems with multiple solar panels, disconnect panels down to a single panel if your system will sit idle for an extended period.
Reducing down to a single panel will decrease power to the charge controller, decreasing the amount of unused energy as heat. A single solar panel will be able to provide enough power to trickle charge a single or multiple battery off-grid system.
Now you don’t have to be afraid of the dark, or dead batteries, again!
For any questions regarding the described Renogy products, please call us at 1 (909) 287-7111 or send us an email at [email protected].
