Charge your equipment batteries and they last a lot longer

[MillWeld]

Blackdog2086:

I have 14 "Battery Tenders" on my stuff stored up North, for the winter.
I am a BIG believer in these "maintenance" type chargers.

Wow! 14! I have 2 and need a third.

 

[94BULLITT]

All those solutions are good but they have one thing one common, the need for AC power.

Where my equipment is stored there is no power within 500 ft., so a solar option is what
I would need. I see that NOCO does offer solar chargers, anyone that has used them care
to comment on their performance, likes, dislikes, etc.

I have a few solar panels, not by Noco. They help a little, very little. 2 of them are 1 watt and I might get 150mA max out of it. I also have a 5 watt that does better and it is the only one in use now.

 

[aschwerin]

Every few months I spend a couple days rotating a trickle charger through all my batteries.

 

[Coyote machine]

Every few months I spend a couple days rotating a trickle charger through all my batteries.

Switch to battery tenders, they are far advanced vs. trickle chargers, and can read the battery condition and adjust charging accordingly.

 

[silvertramp]

Every few months I spend a couple days rotating a trickle charger through all my batteries.

I do that a couple of times during the winter using a Battery Tender. IMO, that's all that's needed.

 

[crazyal]

My Battery Minder can use the batteries own power to do maintenance. I wouldn't use it on a battery that might sit for several months but on equipment that might get started once a month it works just fine. I've found that if you have a charger that can do maintenance (like desulfating the battery) then it's less likely to drain down when not being used. I don't even own a trickle charger. Usually twice a year I let the Battery Minder do it's thing on each battery with it plugged in to top off the batter and haven't had a battery die on me in years now.

 

[varmint]

I understand that they are cheap junk, yet the $5 tenders (on sale) from Harbor Freight seem to work just fine for me. If and when I find out otherwise, I will splurge on a good one. Only my garden tractor sits for more than a few weeks, and I pull that battery and store it in a semi-heated shop, anyway.

 

[aschwerin]

Yeah, I probably should change to something more modern. My trickle charger looks to be from the 50's. As the voltage of the battery goes up, the amperage it provides goes down. When it gets near zero, I hook it to the next battery.

 

[California]

$5 tenders (on sale) from Harbor Freight seem to work just fine for me. If and when I find out otherwise, I will splurge on a good one.

I left one attached perhaps half the time through a winter on a tractor that was only used occasionally. It boiled out far more water than I expected. I found the water level down exposing the plates 2~3 times during the winter.

Now I use it only as a charger, left on for a couple of days, and only after I see that battery voltage is below 12.5 volts.

These don't have any shutoff. They are supposed to reduce current as the voltage rises - but I'm not convinced they do.

========

I like the idea that I saw in a prior thread, mounting a cigarette lighter socket as a charging point and also to draw power for a sprayer. Be sure to include a fuse in that circuit! I darn near burned up the tractor and the tree I stopped under when I turned the watering trailer too sharp, and crimped the wire going back to the trailer. I didn't think lightweight clips on the battery, same cheap clips as that charger, could draw enough current to burn 18 ga lamp cord. Wrong. Luckily I was wearing gloves and got the clamp off the battery before I burned up more than just that cable. My watering circuit is now fused!

 

[ultrarunner]

Way back before modern chargers we had a wooden charge bench for the winter... the charges were left on all winter with a timer to cycle...

Found 5 minutes a day did a good job...