I used to like battery tender, till I found out their warranty was garbage, and of course that fire the one member had.
Will plugging a trickle charger into a GFI outlet prevent a fire if the charger shorts out?
I don't think so.
A GFCI outlet measures the power coming in and then returning to your panel as it completes the circuit. It was designed to detect any difference more than 4 or 5 milliamps and to react quickly (less than one-tenth of a second) to shut down any circuit out of this small range.
which is not the issue. It is using all that power to create fire. It isn't shorting through something to ground. It is shorting to itself.
Would an AFCI outlet prevent a fire? I think they have a combo GFCI/AFCI outlet available.
I don't know on this one.
I have seen them trip using a vacuum but I don't know how it reads the "spark", vs runaway power short.
which could also be due to the battery itself rather than the charger.
