"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message
...
On Oct 11, 2:41 pm, "RogerN" wrote:
snip

I'm not far from St Louis, it's warmer than Chicago but it's not unusual
to
get a few 4WD snow days a year. That's the problem I had last year, my 1
ton 4WD truck doesn't get driven much unless I have to haul something or
need the 4WD. We had a snow day and I needed to take the truck and had to
charge the trucks (F350 diesel with 2 batteries) for a couple of hours
before it would start. This year I'm wanting to keep the truck ready to go
plus try to keep the seasonal batteries in shape for next year. I already
have a few bad batteries but I'd like to have automatic charging working
before buying new batteries. The backhoe is handy year around but only
using it every couple of months keeps the batteries dying.

RogerN
/
/Okay...much more adverse environment than we have here in southern CA.
/
/Anything that NEEDS to run during the winter should have a trickle
/charger and engine heater.
/
/Anything else you can charge on a regular basis...just keep the charge
/topped off or the batteries will freeze.
/
/Be careful enclosing any charger...they do need ventilaton. I came
/very close to burning a van up by closing the hood on the van with a
/charger inside...I caught it as it was smoking.
/
/It is better to run a 110v extension cord than to run long 12v
/lines...low voltage lines drop too much voltage and give the charger
/an errorous indication as to its charge.
/
/A comment on trickle chargers...I have had several batteries killed by
/chargers that overcharged the batteries.
/
/Also in my experience smart chargers are not so smart...I have seen
/them not charge batteries or overcharge them....always watch them.
/
/TMT

I've also been disappointed with some of the smart chargers and that is at
least part of the reason for my post here, thought maybe someone here found
one to recommend. I'm not sure I understand the difficulty a "Smart"
charger would have with batteries. Seems my auto voltage regulators keep my
batteries happy for years on the car I drive daily. So, maybe if I had a
charger that automatically started charging when the power was on, I could
set a time to charge the battery for maybe an hour a day, to simulate
driving the car an hour a day.

RogerN