Battery maintainer

[garbageguy]

Has anyone tried, seen, or have comments on the 1.8W "Battery Maintainer". It's currently being advertised as on sale at another place to buy boating stuff (WM).

 

[oldjeep]

Re: Battery maintainer

Standard trickle charger. Some folks swear by them, and they probabally do help with the max life of a battery. I'm not a huge fan of leaving batteries attached to chargers in storage, so I just disconnect mine and charge it before use.

 

[Texasmark]

Re: Battery maintainer

I don't either but I do periodically recharge all my batteries that sit. I acquired several low current power supplies over the years that were used to power small electronics and put a couple of clips on the ones that had the appropriate dc voltage and current requirements. Works for me.

Mark

 

[agallant80]

Re: Battery maintainer

I thought most chargers these days were smart enough to monitor the battey and turn off the charging when not needed.

 

[oldjeep]

Re: Battery maintainer

I thought most chargers these days were smart enough to monitor the battey and turn off the charging when not needed.

They are, but the issue is a battery (or charger) failure in a location where you are not going to notice it.

 

[garbageguy]

Re: Battery maintainer

I'm not thinking of it for storage, but for while out on the boat when not running engine, and using stereo, refrigerator. My batteries are good and well-maintained. But for $15 thought it might be useful, just seeing what fellow iboaters thought.

 

[greenbush future]

Re: Battery maintainer

Trickle chargers are great, I use em for snowmobiles, tractors, boat batteries. Hook one up to a already dead battery and you might just kill it for good. They are designed to keep the battery at already charged levels, not recharge them. Lots of folks have tried to charge a low battery up with one and found they don't work for that application, needs to be charged up to begin with! The one's I have work just fine if used as intended.

 

[UncleWillie]

Re: Battery maintainer

I'm not thinking of it for storage, but for while out on the boat when not running engine, and using stereo, refrigerator. My batteries are good and well-maintained. But for $15 thought it might be useful, just seeing what fellow iboaters thought.

I think you are considering a 1.8W (0.15amp) SOLAR Maintainer, which will be useless for running a 10 watt stereo and a 1000 Watt refrigerator.
A maintainer of at least 1.5 AMP (18Watt) is a bare minimum for maintaining a fully charged battery that is powering Nothing!

 

[KD4UPL]

Re: Battery maintainer

1.8 watts is useless for anything but keeping a fully charged battery from self discharging while in storage. It's questionable if it's enough even for that.
If your intent is to help power your stereo and refrigerator than that produce is completely useless.
A solar panel can certainly be used for that type of application but you should be looking at 100 watt or greater models. Putting a few hundred watts of solar on the roof of a pontoon boat, for instance, can provide lots of electricity for music, lights, refrigerator, etc.

 

[garbageguy]

Re: Battery maintainer

Thanks Uncle and KD, exactly the info I was looking for

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Battery maintainer

Just because a charger (portable, smart, solar, or generator) puts out 12 volts does not mean a thing as it regards battery charging. It is the current it is capable of supplying that is important. 1.8 watts will not light a light a single tail light bulb so it cannot possibly provide any help whatsoever for battery charging. A maintainer is typically in the 1 - 2 amp output. Chargers are in 4 - 20 amp output range. By comparison, 1 amp is 12 watts, 2 amps is 24 watts, 4 amps is 48 watts and 20 amps is 240 watts. Hope this helps you and others thinking about free power from solar, understand the limitations. I recently saw a full house solar system south of Hamilton, MO. It took up the entire front yard. The controller, battery bank and the panels must have cost a fortune.