Forum Discussion

CT_WANDERER's avatar
CT_WANDERER
Explorer
Oct 22, 2013

Battery Maintainer

I am in traveling mode, away from home. I have multi (GC2)battery banks because they are not near each other. They are charged with my Iota charge through a selector switch if in use. The bank not in use has a maintainer to keep the battery in condition. However that died the other day. I picked up Schumacher 1.5 amp unit. I hooked it up and it ran the batteries(set of GC2) up to 14.6 volts, since then it has cut back to 13.80 volts. Is this Ok to keep it powered on or will I boil out the water? Should I just plug and unplug the unit every so often until I get back home? My old maintainer would go up to 14.2 then drop back to 13.60 volts. Thanks Gary
  • wa8yxm's avatar
    wa8yxm
    Explorer III
    Oct 22, 2013
    Your battery maintainer is like 1/2% of the 230 amp hours capacity of the batteries.

    Will it boil them dry.

    YES, in about 10 years.
  • BFL13's avatar
    BFL13
    Explorer II
    Oct 22, 2013
    In theory, you can add some resistance to the charger's path to the battery on either pos or neg so the battery sees a lower voltage. In real life, you would have to fiddle with things till you got it right. Could be easy or difficult. EG, I would try putting the neg clamp on the frame instead of the battery, to see if that did anything (assuming the battery is neg grounded to the frame)
  • CT_WANDERER's avatar
    CT_WANDERER
    Explorer
    Oct 22, 2013
    Thanks Right now I am in Mission TX for a few more weeks. Than going to FLA for a week or two, than back to home by Dec.
  • Bobbo's avatar
    Bobbo
    Explorer II
    Oct 22, 2013
    Old-Biscuit wrote:
    That voltage will be OK

    Just check battery water levels

    +1
  • pianotuna's avatar
    pianotuna
    Nomad III
    Oct 22, 2013
    Hi CT,

    You could balance the charging path and not bother with the maintainer at all. Side benefit would be a better Peukert response--more "real" amp-hours of capacity.
  • time2roll's avatar
    time2roll
    Nomad
    Oct 22, 2013
    Fine as long as temperature is moderate. I would not leave it in Phoenix all summer.

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