On May 15, 10:16*pm, Tony Hwang wrote:
BetaB4 wrote:
I posted a question in the newsgroup "rec.boats" about recharging a
lead-acid battery for an electric boat motor after returning from a
boating/fishing trip. *The original question was about whether it's okay to
leave the battery charger on for a few days to a week. *I found out that,
unless I have the more modern automatic type of battery charger, that is a
bad idea -- due to overcharging the battery.

Then someone suggested just plugging the battery charger into a timer and
setting the timer to turn the power off to the battery charger after say 12
hours.

My question now is,

"If I do the timer idea, could the fact that the battery charger will still
be set to "ON", and will still be connected to the battery after the timer
cuts power to the battery charger, cause the battery to discharge and drain
back through the battery charger?"

I tried a Google search but didn't find too much info that I could use.

Hi,
If you have a smart charger with electronic brain, it is OK to leave it
on all the time.

That would be my suggestion too. Just buy a new smart charger. In
the grand scheme of things, especially when you're talking about
boats, they don't cost that much. Also, if proper charging gets you
some extra battery life, it could pay for itself,