Battery charging gurus

x 2 on Bigfish' reply.

I have a cheap battery maintenance "solar charger" from SupercrP that charges the emergency generator battery. Works well, never had a flat battery yet.

Cheers

Anthony

Ditto here.... I have a pair of batteries from my Landcruiser which, whilst still okay when I removed them a couple of years ago (when I fitted a 270 amp alternator to it, I decided to treat it to 2 new batteries as well).

The 2 "old" batteries were consigned to my shed for duties such as running a 14" Davies Craig extraction fan on a model paint booth and the other one provides power to my model railway's point motor solenoids. As such they don't get used regularly or for long periods of time; nor is the current draw very high even when they are being used.

I have a (supposedly) 120 watt fold-up solar panel that I bought with the idea of taking camping....but we rarely go much these days.

I have equipped both batteries (which are located in different areas of the shed) with an Anderson plug and small digital voltmeter. The solar panel is also fitted with an Anderson plug and I simply monitor the voltage in the battery which isn't connected to the solar panel and move from one to the other when I see that it has gotten down to about 12.6v. The one that IS connected to the panel usually shows around 13.7v.

I don't bother moving the solar panel during the day....it simply lives in one spot and I move it to another part of the outside of the shed when I want to charge the other battery.

Costs me nothing to keep both batteries "right" all the time.

Solar sounds like the go or have you considered a different battery type like AGM or Cad etc that can sit unattended for long periods of time without self discharging

Though connect to +ve on one and -ve on the other in that case.

If you are yet to buy the batteries take a look at ACDelco Calcium hybrids; they will serve as starter and deep cycle batteries.