Battery storage

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I felt it was OK to do what I wanted, but now feel better doing it. Also learned about full charge prior to hooking up.

Dave H M wrote:
Dang, the propaganda and price looks good on that norther tool maintainer.

D, you got one and how does it perform?

I have several and love them. They never overcharge or boil the water out of my batteries. I keep one on my riding mower whenever I'm not using it. I put one on the chassis battery of my MH when I found out the inverter/converter wasn't charging it. When I head south for the winter, I take the batteries out of the vehicles staying home and leave them connected all winter long. I highly recommend this charger and the pulsing it does to keep the plates from sulfating - a major destroyer of batteries. Northern Tool might have them even cheaper after they start their Christmas sale.

Dang, the propaganda and price looks good on that norther tool maintainer.

D, you got one and how does it perform?

i do that all the time and all winter with two 12V lawn machines. Works great for me. I leave the batts in and run a home made jumper from one to the other.

freetime58 wrote:
Yes you can, is it advisable, No!

If you choose to do it anyway, when they are all connected in parallel make sure you charge properly by putting the + lead on the + terminal of the first battery and the - charge lead on the - terminal of the last battery. That way they wall all get charged equally.

No, the middle battery will get less of a charge in a bank of three like that. However, the idea is to get all three charged up fully first, then bank them for the Float, when the Float voltage will be sufficient to keep them all fully charged. "Floats all boats" thing.

Yes you can, is it advisable, No!

If you choose to do it anyway, when they are all connected in parallel make sure you charge properly by putting the + lead on the + terminal of the first battery and the - charge lead on the - terminal of the last battery. That way they wall all get charged equally.

Can you connect all of them and charge together-- yes.

BUT, if not too difficult it is preferable to charge batteries of same technology size and age together.

Depends on how easy it is to switch from charging one bank to the other on a weekly basis.

My fully charged then disconnected GC-2's lose less than 10% over a six month period from November to April.

Do it all the time. In reality you don't need any charger on them so long as they are fully charged and not connected to any load. Flooded cell batteries (and the maintenance free ones are flooded cell as well), will only lose about 3% of their total charge per month and cold don't impact them at all. A fully charged battery is actually viable sown to -80 (f).