Battery Charger: The Not so Obvious Yet Essential Camping Piece of Equipment

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Going on trips to the great outdoors with your caravan is always fun, you get to change your surroundings, spend some time with people you care about, explore what nature has to offer, and enjoy beautiful sunrises and sunsets.

Just the thought of this makes preparations and packing up easy, however, you can’t consider fully prepared unless you take along a portable battery charger with you. Yes, caravans are equipped with built-in chargers of their own, but what you should be asking is are they really the most suitable option.

Truth is we can’t consider them as chargers in the real sense because they are made to supply the equipment with 12V power and don’t provide the full charge of leisure and car batteries, only up to about 80%.

charging battery

The last thing you need is having your trip ruined because of a battery problem, that would cost you the modern comforts you were counting on, and worse, expensive trip to the mechanic’s.

If you want to know at least a bit about batteries, let it be how to keep them at their best, in other words when they require recharging, instead of letting them drain all the way, and when to stop to avoid filling up more than enough.

This is essential to be able to prolong their lifespan, and the ideal way to provide that is with the help of a battery charger.

The range of chargers is wide, but before you make up your mind on either DC or 12V, trickle or battery chargers, have in mind it’s necessary to know the exact battery you have.

Leisure provide long currents and require slow recharge, as opposed to car batteries, and you have to disconnect them entirely before charging them in order to eliminate any interference with the charge.

car battery charger

What’s great about chargers today is they are created to be of most use with prevention of damages in mind (e.g. overcharging, overheating), as is the case with the automatic type equipped with monitors.

Battery chargers can be connected to the battery for as long as you want them to because they only start the charging when needed i.e. when the voltage drops below level, and stop when the battery is full.

If you don’t go on trips as often as you want to, then instead of being concerned with the battery all the time, turn to the help of trickle chargers.

These chargers are created for that very purpose which would explain their function: providing constant charge, at a slow pace, for a long period, in the same rate as the battery’s own discharging. Use them once a month, for a day, and you’d be able to extend battery life.