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On 23 Mar 2005 at 10:00, fess wrote: > It seems like if you've got a period of time where you only take your > car on very short drives in the city, that you'll need every moment of > running to get the battery charged back up to full, so the time spent > warming up, and sitting at stop lights is wasted opportunity to charge > the battery. This is a reasonable question, and I don't know the answer either. What I do know for sure is that if your generator powered car has a dead battery, just getting it started and then letting it sit and idle will just make it worse, not better. An alternator car will do better, but how much better is not clear.. It's certainly true that the alternator car will put out SOME current, but it's not clear that it will put out more than the car is using while idling. It certainly doesn't put out anywhere close to its full rated output at idle. OTOH, you really don't have to drive very much to make up for the energy expended in starting. If you use 100 amps for 10 seconds to start your car, and your charging system has 10 amps to spare, the battery will be fully replenished in about 2 minutes of driving. That's not much, and I think most of us will find that 10 seconds of cranking is a lot more than we usually need to start our cars. That said, I just pulled the charger off my square parked in the driveway. It had sat there for a month since the last time I used it, and it just didn't have the guts to get me started last night at 20F. It's fine now. When I need to charge it, I just run an extension cord out to the car, put the charger in the footwell, and clip the + lead to an appropriate terminal on the fuse box. I prefer to charge for about 24 hours at a 2 A rate. It's much easier on the battery than a fast charge. -- ******************************* Jim Adney, jadney@vwtype3.org Madison, Wisconsin, USA ******************************* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list | mailto:gregm@vwtype3.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~