no probs trickle charging a battery connected
The current going into the battery will limit whats taken by other electrical thingies, such as alarms etc.
Why would the alternator be damaged as the on/off switch disables these, otherwise the battery would always be connected to it??
If the battery is rated at say, 10 AH (Ten Ampere Hours) or wotever, then a good rule of thumb for trickle charging is to divide the AH rating by 10 - 15 and this then determines the trickle charge
So you have a battery wiff, for a bike say, 15 AH then between 2.25 Amps and approx 1.5 Amps would trickle charge the battery. Most often the lower rating the better
However...................
This is not the same as battery conditioning, coz all you'd need to keep the battery topped up would probably be about 2% max of AH rating, so for a 15AH batt then if my befuddled brain can do the maths, 300 milliamps which equates to 0.3 of an amp
more wine needed methinks
get an optimate or equiv, it does the bl**dy job fer you
rgds
mort
