I work in the security industry and have access to all sorts of 12 volt power supplies, and wiring accessories.
I also have a garage that has not been sheetrocked yet, and I was thinking about installing a group of one amp 12 volt power supplies in a central location, and running wiring through the walls to wall plates near the fronts of the cars. I can terminate the wall plates with something like a 1/4 jack (like for headphones) and make up jumper cords with clip leads, or some other method if getting 12 volts to the batteries.
My question is, to maintain batteries, if I were to power the main power supply off of a timer, how many hours ( or minutes) per day should you put a 1 amp charge into a car battery to keep it charged without cooking it.
I am thinking 1 to 2 hours a day, but not being an electrical engineer, I am just guessing.
Any opinions?
Thanks,
Brian
12 V power supplies might not do the job because they may be regulated at less than a good charging voltage.
You need a power supply that will taper the charge, keep it at the ideal level
to let the battery "float" at 13.8 volts. Otherwise, you'll "Cook" the battery and
it will be overcharged and die.
In other words, you ned somehing like the "Battery Tender" that has a computer
circuit in it that does all those things and more (comphensation for temperature, etc).
Just putting 12 volts on it at any constant rate is no good.
Mike
Gentlemen,
I am glad I asked, and got the above information.
I will just put in electrical outlets and use the small Battery Tenders. I do all sorts of low voltage wiring for a living, so it seemed like a neat idea, but for $29.00 or so, I can buy the Battery Tenders, so there is no advantage to overcomplicating it.
Thanks,
Brian