Battery Minder

You can leave a Battery Minder hooked up, battery still connected, and not worry about power outages. I have them hooked up to two ATVs, JD 750 tractor, two antique cars, a commercial zero turn mower and my Honda EU 3000is, year round and in the neck of the woods where my sticks and bricks is located, power drops out 3-5 times per year. Never an issue...they don't need a "start" command, you plug them in and they start "minding" the battery...the power coming back on after an outage is the same as plugging it in. BTW, our other daily driver is sitting in the drive with its Battery Minder hooked up since we've already gone to our winter haven here in Arizona and won't be returning until sometime in May...

ksg5000 wrote:
my battery charger won't automatically restart after a temp power outage.

Then you need a new charger.

I've personally never seen one that works like that.
As a matter of fact, one I got recently specifically recommends hooking up the battery leads FIRST and then plugging it in.

Maybe you should do a test or two. Maybe the failure you had was caused by a combination of low/high/frequent outages over a short time. Or maybe you just need a new charger.

Battery minders are subject to failure like everything else in this life.
I ditto on just disconnecting the battery and it will be fine for 3 if not 6 months left alone.
When you leave cables connected, you will have power leak that will drain the battery, eventually killing it.

If you have a battery minder or charger plugged into a GFI and the GFI trips there is no charger that is going to restart.

The GFI was my point and they do trip sometimes due to a power outage or power surge.

Wouldn't a person think there would be a hell of an uproar if a particular brand of battery maintenance device tended to fail.

Key words...

Possible

Likely

It's "possible" to win a billion dollar lottery. But "likely" isn't in the scenario.

Kalispell, isn't banana-growing country. Minus forty, would not make the newspaper in London.

For the cost of a battery maintenance product and total aggregate kWh consumed during a season it's a tough job arguing against using a battery maintenance product.

Make a 10-gauge jumper clip to short the house battery with the chassis battery and that way everything stays topped-off.

By fully charging both batteries, connecting them together then verifying with a volt meter a week later that battery voltage is being maintained (no sneak draws) confidence can be gained that the system will survive a winter just fine.

As a side note, I was not aware of any gasoline engine ECU that had a 0 milliamp draw when left connected. Do I need to update my opinion?

I use BT Jrs., .75A on everything I own. Had 2 on the Class A. I would turn those batteries off because they had disconnects and then plug in the Jrs. On everything else they just get plugged in and left to run. In the shop right now there is one on the hybrid trailer, the tractor, the DR grader, the mower, both boat batteries and the 03 Santa FE. In the house garage there is one for the UTV I use to run around the property. Everything but the SF and the boat have original batteries and the boat batteries were 5 years old before they got replaced. Best thing you can do to extend the life of a battery is to charge it slow and keep it maintained.