Floating vs Storage Voltage Question

BFL13 wrote:

profdant139 wrote:
Bear in mind that there are two types of battery users on this forum: experts and the rest of us. Experts will (correctly) lavish attention on their batteries, getting maximum performance and longevity. And for that audience, it makes sense to carefully adjust the voltage of the charging system while the batteries are not in use.

For the rest of us, it is enough that we put the batteries on a trickle-type charger when they are not being used, and monitor the water. The manufacturers of the chargers pre-set those units -- there is no way for the end user to alter them, as far as I know.

The "set it and forget it" approach is not perfect but it is adequate for most RVers. But if your life depends on your batteries, you have to take a more hands-on approach.

Then, of course, there are the "do nothing at all" people who just let their batteries sit there and rot and then recharge them before each camping trip. (I used to be one of those folks before I learned how expensive that method really is.) The "do nothings" are not even reading this thread.

But they will, eventually. ;)

All true. Another thing is that most chargers that drop to float after a time at 14.x do so before the battery is completely charged.

So if you disconnect after the charger says they are full, you miss the following time at 13.6 when the batts might get a little more charging towards true full.

I am not clear how long on float you need to be after a time at 14.x to finish the recharge so you can disconnect. It might not even be happening. There is SG lag, so the apparent improvement in SG next day after being on Float since the recharge might just be that the SG has caught up, not from more actual charging.

I think this is very true, I don't have any sophisticated equipment to check this but I have noticed over the years of dry camping if I float my batteries at 13.2v after my "Smart Charger" says full, for 3 days before I go camping I can go 2 more days before my 2 6v GC batteries get to 50% SOC. I don't often stay in the same CG for 7 days but I have done this about 15 times on these batteries. From 5 to 7 days to me is significant. Now granted maybe I was more careful about light usage but I firmly believe that 13.2-13.6v constant charge helps.