How do you maintain your batteries at the dock?

[Fishspearit]

Originally Posted by David M

14.5 volts is much too high. An absorption charge is not necessary each and every time.....all this will do is turn your water into hydrogen much faster than normal. Either something is wrong with your charger or it needs an adjustment if such an adjustment is possible.

No adjustment possible, I just reread my chargers manual.
Maybe it's just the dock I'm on, but we get the occasional power flicker, especially during the summer lightning storms, and every time the charger gets turned off and then powered back up, it wants to go through all of it's steps in the 3-step charging process. I figured that was normal.

S/V Illusion, thanks for the link. That info seems to back up my own opinion. I have to add a lot of water when keeping it on the charger all the time. I think I'll just continue regularly cycling my battery while at the dock. According to Capt Head's chart if I only go down 40% I would get 3700 cycles, and cycling 50 times a year doesn't add much to that total. But it might help my batteries last longer.

[gonesail]

Originally Posted by Fishspearit

Every time the power flickers it goes back into bulk charging mode and brings voltage up to 14.5 or so. Sitting here on a float charge of 13.75V I can see my batteries bubbling and hear them gurgle.

i have the same concerns and wonder why my charger does this. do the batteries really need 14V @ 20 amps? once i came to the boat and smelled vinegar ... i am sure the charger must have boiled the batteries. i have a freedom inverter with xantrex monitor. perhaps i need to equalize the trojan batteries?

[Pblais]

Have you considsred using a timer on the charger? At the dock you can not be using that much power to need it charging all the time. Even a few hours per day would be more than enough.

[highseas]

From what I understand from my alternative power guy,;says to deplete to 65%,then fully charge.Bulk charge goes up to 14.3 volts,when in float it sits around 13.5 volts.Monthly equalize brings voltage up to 15.5 volts in bulk.Never let them sit uncharged,only add distilled water when charged up.I accidently drained mine once to 9 volts,after charging they seemed to sit at a higher voltage than before.this apparently is what they like once in a while.