is my charger working?
 

Now that it's getting cold I decided to try out my new Porsche cig. lighter trickle charger(the small transformer unit). I've been driving the car about once a week so I figured the battery is pretty well charged, so i was surprised to see the charging light still on after 12 hours. Here's my questions:

1. how long should it take to bring up a good battery to full charge?
2. could there be a problem w/the cig lighter fixture...and how would you check that?
3. can leaving this thing plugged in and charging constantly damage the electrical system?

Thanks for your input! DJ

Dj1, this all seems very normal to me. In fact, I had the same concern last year when I first used the battery maintainer. The red light will turn off soon.

When it is fully charged, the red light will turn back on even if you just unlock the car or turn on the headlights. FYI.

dj,

I concur with Bill. Check out this thread :

http://986forum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7851&highlight=charger

Nick

also, if you still have the OEM Moll battery or another 'un-sealed' kind, make sure it's full off w/ (distilled) water. Otherwise, you'll over cook what fluid is in there and yield the battery useless.

Thanks for the reassurance guys. I'm really paranoid about screwing up the "love of my life". The light went off after about 14 hrs. I was a little surprised it took that long. Don't know if that indicates the health of my battery. Thanks for pointing me to that thread Nick. Only 5 more months till spring :D
dj

It will continue to go off and on every day. The alarm system drains the battery.

The cigarette lighter variety of trickle chargers are also very low powered, which means it takes a lot longer to charge the battery ... which is a good thing. A rapid charge on the battery isn't nearly as good for it long-term as a trickle of power topping it off.

This reminds me that I need to put mine on the car. I'm not driving it much these days.

Me neither. I'm heading into my first winter and I think this is gonna prove real tough. Even tho i'm not putting it into hibernation, the weather in RI is pretty ugly a lot of the time(had a little snow yesterday!) and with the salt and all .....it isn't going to see a lot of daylight. But she sure stays clean and shiny!