According to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle_charging
Trickle charging means charging a battery at the same rate as it is self
discharging, thus maintaining a full capacity battery. One must be
careful, however, that the charge rate is not more than the self
discharge, or overcharging and possible damage or leakage may occur.
Dario Bonazza wrote:
Discussing batteries and chargers, what does trickle charge mean exactly?
Apparently, some manufacturers (e.g. Quantum) mean a charger function
for maintaining the batteries charged after the normal charging cycle is
complete. That means that if you need the batteries you can use them
after the recharge cycle, while if you have to store the batteries for a
long time, they are kept at full charge by the charger, which does some
small charge from time to time, just to compensate for auto-discharge.
In this case, you get 100% battery power after normal recharge and
before trickle charge, and then again 100% power at any time after
trickle charge.
The batteries are supposed to stay in the charger idefinitely.
Other manufacturers call trickle charge the last part of the standard
recharge cycle, a slower final charge where the batteries are filled up
as much as possible. In this case, you get say 80-90% battery power
after quick charge (with no trickle charge), while you only get 100%
power if you let the charger perform the complete cycle, including the
quick charge and the trickle charge.
The batteries are supposed to stay in the charger only for their
recharge cycle (with or without trickle charge depending on the urgence
of using them).
Please enlighten me. Thanks.
Dario
