[TR] Trickle Charger Wire Gauge?

[Dave1massey at cs.com]

In a message dated 10/18/2009 6:34:09 PM Central Daylight Time, 
tr3driver at ca.rr.com writes: 
> Something to keep in mind; small wire also has a significant resistance,
> which may affect your charger if you use a long enough length of it.  For
> example, 24 AWG has about .025 ohms per foot, so a 20' length (40' total)
> would drop about 0.5 volts @ 500 ma.  That doesn't sound like much, but 
> it's
> more than the difference between a fully charged battery and a 50% charged
> battery (according to the table at
> http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-13.htm

All that will do is slow down the rate of charging.  As the battery 
approaches full charge the current will reduce and the drop in the line will 
reduce.  A fully charged battery will draw little current and any current will 
exceed the self discharge rate.  Besides, these are "Battery Tenders" intended 
to keep a charged battery charged.  If you want to charge a discharged 
battery you need to use something else.  In the industry parlance it is a "Float" 
charger.

Powersonic has a good technical manual on batteries: 
http://www.power-sonic.com/index.php?id=42

Dave