Battery Shut off and Storage Question.

Sam Spade wrote:

Nvr2loud wrote:
It keeps a trickle charge on the battery.

Since adopting this approach, I've kept the same battery useful for three seasons now!

We have long winters here, so the battery is out of the trailer for the entire winter and kept inside my basement.

I don't need or want to trickle charge an unused battery for 7 months.

A couple of points need to be made here:
An actual "trickle charger" is NOT GOOD to use unattended for more than 24 hours or so. If you really mean a low capacity tender type automatic charger than that's good; if you really have a trickle charger, you need to throw it away and get an automatic one.

If you have conventional wet cell batteries, you really DO need to have them on float charge or a manual shot of charge once a month.
Letting them sit for 7 months, the self-discharge will take them lower than they should be for longest life.

And lastly, if you have a way to charge the batteries while in the unit, there is no reason to remove them to protect them from the cold. They like the cold and won't freeze down to about -70F if fully charged.

I agree with the first part about "trickle Chargers" being bad if left on all the time.

But, the battery in my boat sets all winter long with out a charge put to it. In the spring I charge it up before the first use, hook it up, and go. And, we have many battery's in our farm equipment that set all winter long with no charge too. No problems with any of them.

All of the above battery's are fully charged before winter and then the cables are unhooked from them.

It might be best (technically) to charge them up once and awhile in the winter but, it's not possible, and they seem to hold up just fine without.