Trickle charging….
 

I'm about to put my battery on a trickle charge: the S hasn't had too much (long) use recently, and I had to call the RAC a few weeks ago to get it started. Kwikfit have subsequently checked the battery and said it's ok, but that it needs a charge, so I'm about to put in on the charger (as my Coupe has spent the past three days on it, and is now fully charged..+++)

I'm just wondering if there is any risk in doing this with the '8/anything I should watch for before I go ahead? - all advice welcome, as ever...

See this thread HERE and HERE Stephen. We use it for charging our D3's and my D2 and I have purchased the additional charging indicator sockets which you permanently wire in to the battery - they show a constant flashing green Amber or red led to show state of charge and at easy to plug into without faffing about with the connections all the time or taking covers off (you could get one for both cars then just alternate in between them!). The. Charger itself analyses the battery and goes through about 5 or 6 different charge processes to ensure the battery charge is correctly carried out and then also switches itself off when complete. Check out ctek's website for more details of that. I bought the charger on ebay from a ford dealer selling them because it was about £35 cheaper than direct from CTEK and then bought the charging sockets plus a wall holder for the charger direct from CTEK. +++

Trickle charging options
 

Cheers Neil - the CTEK kit looks good: at the moment I've got a cheaper Halfords charger which just gives a red/green indicator, but it sounds like I could do with a more sophisticated device.

The RAC guy who recently came out to start my Coupe (I'm a regular customer, probably with my postcode saved in his van..;)..) suggested that I buy a device that also tells you the battery condition, which my Halfords one definitely doesn't :(...

Pictures of CTEK socket with traffic light indicator here:
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7459&page=2
Love it.

Pah. Yet another downside of using public transport instead of entrusting your 8.... :p+++

For you guys with the solar panel, is there a way to wire the solar panel to trickle charge the battery? There are several 12V solar panels on sale to keep starter batteries topped up, I guess they are supposed to go temporarily on the parcel shelf. The beauty of a D2 with solar sun roof is you already have the cells. Maybe it could prevent starter batteries sulphating when left too long and allowed to drop below 50% charge?

Goran, yes, it is possible.

See this thread with links to the the kit: http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7631

I haven't done this yet as car is parked garaged most of the time, so I see value in fans blowing when I park car outside the garage.

Edit: Power rating of D2 FL solar panel is 33.6W under direct sunlight.

Thanks Sergey, I'm glad it can be done. 33.6W that's pretty good, around 2.8A?
Would be more than enough to compensate for any normal parasitic current draining the battery.