I have a Marinco trickle charger that does well at keeping batteries up during storage. It has horrendous RFI though if you happen to have an HF radio at home, pretty much S9 noise from 1 to 30 MHz ☹
Joe Della Barba Coquina C&C 35 MK I www.dellabarba.com From: CnC-List [mailto:cnc-list-boun...@cnc-list.com] On Behalf Of Randy Stafford via CnC-List Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2020 1:40 PM To: cnc-list@cnc-list.com Cc: Randy Stafford <randal.staff...@icloud.com> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: Stus-List Battery Charger at home? Hi Brian, I also have a Schumacher charger, model SC4. It seemed to work well enough for my purposes. A couple years ago a cycling bilge pump ran my batteries flat on two occasions, and I had to pull them out and bring them home for charging. I don’t know how you’re defining “fully charged” but if I recall correctly I would have 13.6 volts of potential from each battery after charging on the Schumacher. I don’t have a battery level meter on my boat. I’ve got a small solar panel and charge controller on my boat that trickle-charges the batteries. It keeps them topped up enough that I leave them on board over the winter and have the amperage to start the A4 on launch in the spring. I’ve got a pair of group 29 lead/acid batteries that I topped up with distilled water when I brought them home to recharge. Two years after running them both flat twice, and recharging them with that Schumacher SC4, they’re still giving perfect service. If I recall correctly I bought that Schumacher unit because it was relatively inexpensive. Cheers, Randy Stafford S/V Grenadine C&C 30 MK I #79 Ken Caryl, CO On Apr 30, 2020, at 10:47 AM, nausetbeach--- via CnC-List <cnc-list@cnc-list.com<mailto:cnc-list@cnc-list.com>> wrote: Does anyone have a recommendation for a good at home battery charger? My charger died earlier this week. It was a “smart” charger made by Schumacher but it never seemed to really get the batteries fully charged. I never could find out the charging parameters. Having a charger with an option which can force an equalization step seems like a necessary capability. I have flooded batteries and do not see changing type in the near future. By way of background, last fall I asked about storing batteries over the winter – Rob A, Marek, Ken H and others all recommended leaving them on board, and Ken sent a link to an article on RC’s / Marine How To website about battery storage, which was very helpful. In that article RC strongly suggested the batteries should be at full charge and they should be fine come spring. I had zero confidence my battery charger [a home / garage charger, do not have an on board charger or even any AC on board] would be up to the task so once again I brought the batteries home. Thanks, Brian _______________________________________________ Thanks everyone for supporting this list with your contributions. Each and every one is greatly appreciated. If you want to support the list - use PayPal to send contribution -- https://www.paypal.me/stumurray
_______________________________________________ Thanks everyone for supporting this list with your contributions. Each and every one is greatly appreciated. If you want to support the list - use PayPal to send contribution -- https://www.paypal.me/stumurray
