12 volt battery

[andinator]

This is a little off topic-but something that never the less deeply concerns me.:grin: . At the conclusion of my canoe trip down the Holston river in northern TN (we did catch MONSTER small mouth) my trolling motor battery was pretty much tapped out and read 12V on my DVM. Should I charge this sucker for winter storage, or leave it be until the next trip in May??

 

[stickboy1375]

A trickle charger will be perfect...

 

[Michael15956]

Having owned motorcycles most of my life and storing them for the winter, I always keep a small trickle charge on the batteries for prolonged life.

 

[dereckbc]

It needs to be on a float charger of exactly 13.6 VDC. Otherwise like every battery it will go into self discharge.

 

[HighWirey]

Never allow a 'storage battery' to relax. They always like a minimum charge.

Signed,
the battery killer

Best Wishes

 

[wptski]

"Any" lead-acid battery will start to sulfate when not fully charged, it's a fact of life.

 

[Denis]

consider buying a battery minder, specificaly for storing seasonal use batteries
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_6970_200332201_200332201

 

[Rampage_Rick]

I keep one of these on my Jeep while it vacations in the garage for 6 months each winter.

I bought a PulseTech Xtreme charger after watching the results of a PowerPulse demo on a couple of our golf carts. We were having problems with 48V carts not being able to make a full round of golf with a year of use on the batteries. (our course is 12.5km / ?8mi round trip, with 750-foot change in elevation) After a few weeks with the lil' black box wired in parallel with the batteries there was a remarkably noticeable increase in capacity. We ran tests and there was on average a 30-40% increase in CCA. I was sold, but it seemed impossible to convice the boss to spend 8 grand on lil' magic boxes ($100 x 85) The issue became moot when the entire fleet worth of batteries was changed out under warranty. (though some of the resultant 'pulsed' batteries had a higher CCA than their 'new' replacements) I'm still thinking that we'll run into the same issues next year, and had I had my own way would have equipped all the brand new batteries with PowerPulse units.

During the summer while the Jeep actually saw the outside, I used the Xtreme to rejuvinate a bunch of 12V SLA batteries I had lurking around my office (mostly UPS batteries) You have to 'trick' the charger with a good battery in parallel sometimes, as it won't start the cycle if the voltage is too low, but I was able to salvage some of them. Generally if the sides are bulging it's a lost cause.