what is trickle charge? sorry for the silly question. I just can’t really understand it even after reading it over and over again. I need someone to explain it to me like I’m a toddler literally
In: Technology
Imagine pushing a ball up a curve that gets steeper and steeper until it’s pointing straight into the air.
Eventually you’d have to be pushing the ball straight up in the air which is impossible, but you can’t let go because the ball will fall back down the curve. So eventually you’ll reach a point where you are pushing the ball up as hard as you can, the ball wants to fall back down as hard is it can, and these cancel out *safely*. The safe part is the point, since the ball wants to fall down anyway your ‘push back’ force just keeps that as they are.
My example refers to older types of batteries you won’t use as a layperson in your daily life. In these batteries there is a natural chemistry in how the batteries charge that “resists” the charging process. When the battery approaches ‘full charge’ this chemistry pushes back against the charging and a balance is created without any outside input.
Your laptop or cellphone battery are different. They won’t resist the charging the same way so they can be dangerous and get overcharged and that’s “no muy bueno” for your house not burning down.
So you need a computer device with smart programming to sense when the battery is nearly full and it’ll throttle the charging process deliberately to cut off the flow of power to the battery. Think of it like filling a car with gasoline, you want the pump to realize when the car is full and stop automatically. At that point, the battery will slowly discharge naturally even without being used so in this case “Trickle Charging” refers to the combination of 1. realizing the battery is almost full and slowing the charging process and 2. then keeping a very slow trickle of power to the battery to keep it charged at 100%.
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