Car battery protection w/rare car use

[Grigate]

Hi, I rarely (once a week or once in two weeks) use my vehicle and the car battery goes low, not enough to start.
If I connect a 1Amp 12Volt charger to the battery just to provide power to whatever is slowly draining the battery, will it help? will it damage the battery?
will it cause any adverse condition to the vehicle? I am thinking to use the diagram in the attachment.
Thank you
Grig

 

[DPG]

Buy a charger/conditioner - these are designed to be left connected and charge/maintain the battery as required.

They usually come with a short harness that you can leave connected to your battery and just plug the battery in to. Usually advisable to connect the negative wire to the chassis rather than directly to battery negative.

 

[mainline]

I would have the battery tested, and current usage checked when the car is in sleep mode.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

Most vehicle batteries should still be reasonably charged after one or two weeks, so it's worth checking that the battery is not faulty or life-expired, and that there is not an excessive drain from something that should not be operating. Not long ago, we found an excessive drain in one of our pickups from an aftermarket audio system. That wasn't causing the drain itself, but it was keeping part of the truck's CANbus system awake and that was using about 5 times as much as it should do once the vehicle is dark.

A float charger is perfectly normal and safe and many critical service vehicles are left on float charge. As above, use a purpose-made unit designed for permanent connection. The voltage is very important and in theory it depends on battery chemistry and temperature. 12V definitely won't keep it charged and 15V will definitely kill it quickly. 13.8V is a popular general float voltage but many types have adjustment and/or temperature compensation.

 

[Grigate]

Now that you mentioned this, I recently installed a cap on my truck which has a remote back door lock. It has a small circuit board with a red LED that is always on, plus I have an aftermarket (installed at the dealership) security system. The bad thing is that I have all these additions before I started to walk to work and stopped using my vehicle. I like the float charger idea thought. Anyone knows a good one?

 

[DPG]

Now that you mentioned this, I recently installed a cap on my truck which has a remote back door lock. It has a small circuit board with a red LED that is always on, plus I have an aftermarket (installed at the dealership) security system. The bad thing is that I have all these additions before I started to walk to work and stopped using my vehicle. I like the float charger idea thought. Anyone knows a good one?

Ctek make some good ones and aren't too expensive. Avoid cheap ebay tat.

 

[Grigate]

Sounds like a good solution (float charger), thank you.