Finally figured out a routine..batteries

hershey wrote:
Is that really necessary? Not a flame, just an honest question. What difference is 90% charge to start with as opposed to 100% charge which will probably burn off to 90% before you actually start to use it. :)

The last 10% is the hardest part of a battery charge session. When boondocking I just try to top off each time but I don't worry about getting that last 10%.

for longest battery life (charge/discharge cycles) you DO need to get batteries back to FULL charge periodically. If you don't you risk sulfation damage. Most mfg are pretty specific about getting them back to initial SG periodically and NOT make a practice of only partial charges.

you don't need to do it every cycle, but should be done periodically. I do somewhat like menna. When I'm home, I plug it it, charge it with the PD unit till it quites (usually about a day), then use the vector which has a higher bulk charging mode voltage, closer to what trojan recomends. My results are that after 8 years on a pair of GC that are discharged to well under 50% SOC, often to about 30% SOC, about 30 times/year, SG on each cell is still at the 1.280 that a new set is at.

Getting the last 10% when out camping is an excercise in futility so I don't bother when we are boondocking, but try to bring them up to 100% as soon as a hookup is available.