Keeping battery charged
Ok, here's my question, Dose it hurt to keep your HT plugged into the house to keep battery charged...
Forum Discussion
Constant charging is not helpful if you don't monitor the electrolyte level periodically. And isn't necessary anyway. I've killed enough boat batteries by "boiling" out the electrolyte so just disconnect my camper battery from the trailer when I'm done using it.
New Rockwoods (maybe others) are coming with a battery master switch and it's easy to retrofit one to any camper, just put it on the Negative/Ground wire to stop the parasitic discharges from things like radio memory and LP detector that are hard wired to the 12v system. You can go months without much self discharge with a switch like this. Just top off the charge the day before the next camping weekend.
Unless you disconnect or constantly charge the battery expect it to be dead in 3 or 4 weeks of non-use in summer temperatures.
-- Chuck
New Rockwoods (maybe others) are coming with a battery master switch and it's easy to retrofit one to any camper, just put it on the Negative/Ground wire to stop the parasitic discharges from things like radio memory and LP detector that are hard wired to the 12v system. You can go months without much self discharge with a switch like this. Just top off the charge the day before the next camping weekend.
Unless you disconnect or constantly charge the battery expect it to be dead in 3 or 4 weeks of non-use in summer temperatures.
-- Chuck
