T-Pain Is On A Boat: Re: [Electric Boats] Electrical 'efficiency' of batteries in my boat.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Re: [Electric Boats] Electrical 'efficiency' of batteries in my boat.

I have 4 Lifeline AGM batteries which I charge with a Dual Pro 4 bank charger.

It is a Marine charger and I mounted it in the boat. It is s smart charger and reduces to a trickle. I keep it plugged in all year. It has LCD readout so you can get a pretty good idea where each battery is at when charging. The AGM's are expensive however I keep the boat in the basement when charging and preferred the idea of the AGM's in the closed space-no off-gas . Supposedly have more charge cycles etc but I suspect even over the batter life the Trogan's or similar llead acid will work out cheaper.

On Jun 28, 2010, at 11:13 AM, hardy71uk wrote:

Trojan recommends charging with a standard charger every month or so during storage . Which is probably good enough. But i do know that to get maximum battery lifetime, professional companies, such as for telephones use a constant voltage float charger avoiding the need for a monthly big charge altogether and avoiding battery cycling. The maintaining current is very small so a light cable at 36 volts could be used rather than a line chord .

Chris S

--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, Matthew Geier <matthew@...> wrote:
>
> On 28/06/10 19:47, hardy71uk wrote:
> > 6 weeks since a charge seems a long time . I would have thought you should be trickle charging contiuously at less than 1 amp to maintain the battery except when recharging after a run.
> >
> I don't have an external power socket, the boat is charged by putting
> a power cord under my front door. One of these days I need to get an
> external weather proof socket on the side of the house where the boat is
> parked.
>
> And the Delta-Q charger actually shuts off entirely when it's fully
> charged, I assume if left powered, at regular intervals it would tickle
> the batteries to keep em topped off.
>