Batteries

[w6bauer]

My '96 has been sitting in the barn for a while now, had to move her today and she was a little sluggish when I cranked her up. I am going to hook the charger up, when I do this will it charge both batteries equally when only hooked to one battery or should I switch batteries after so many hours? I am not going to be drivin her too much this winter and would like to keep the batteries in top condition as I just bought them Dec. 07, not cheap. Thanks

[damork]

If your connections are clean and tight and batteries were replaced as a pair, the charger should keep them even.

[DennisG01]

That's correct, electricity is lazy - it will follow the path of least resistance. Which means the charging juice will always go to the battery that is in a state of greater discharge. So basically, it will charge one of the batteries until it reaches the same voltage as the better one. Then, the juice will kinda "skip back and forth" between the two, charging them both.

Once you get them charged up, you might won't to look into small ( <5 watts ) solar panel chargers. You might have to extend the wires to reach the roof of the barn, but these will keep good batteries good. These panels are readily available under $50. A typical battery charger - say a 10 or 20 amp one that switches to trickle - can still cook a battery if left on it. Battery Minder and Battery Tender also make excellent powered chargers that are designed for exactly what you want - they're called "maintenance chargers".

[Mark Rinker]

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37.l1313&satitle=trickle+charger&category0=

My streetrod, lawnmower, boat, etc. all get trickle chargers attached during winter months. Extends the life of the batteries indefinately...I've got 5 years (so far) on the streetrod battery, which is only used couple dozen or so times per year...

[w6bauer]

thanks to everyone

[sturgeon-phish]

My truck sits in the garage for weeks at a time without being started. After toasting a pair of batteries by putting them on the charger after running them dead, I bought a tricle charger that is made for vehicles in storage. Can't remeber the name but it was ~ $18 from Walmart. Since using it I have not had a problem with a dead battery. I wish I had used it a long time ago.
Jim