Trickle Charging 2 Batts over winter?

[Grant Brown]

My 2 starting batteries are out of the boat and in the garage for the winter. I don't want to kill them by letting them discharge. Could I connect them in parallel and just leave them on my 2 amp (full manual) charger?
How long could I safely charge like that?
How often would I need to top up the water?
What size of wire should I use to connect them together?

Thanks,
Grant

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Trickle Charging 2 Batts over winter?

buy 2 automatic battery maintainers and forget about them.

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...D25X-_-100610035&locStoreNum=6346&marketID=14

 

[Chris1956]

Re: Trickle Charging 2 Batts over winter?

Grant, It would be better to charge them overnight every month or so. They will not discharge very much, if they are good batteries. I would wire them in parallel using 14-18AWG wire or whatever you have laying around. Connect the charger and every month plug it in for an overnight charge. A 2A charge rate is nothing for those batteries.

 

[blueoval1]

Re: Trickle Charging 2 Batts over winter?

Like tasha says. Just get you either two maintainers or a charger/maintainer that has 2 outputs. I have a Minn Kota MK210 onboard charger/maintainer on my boat and love it.

 

[mthieme]

Re: Trickle Charging 2 Batts over winter?

Last year I bought a float charger which didn't seem to maintain the battery. It was an older battery that didn't make it through the season...hopefully this was why.
I've used solar chargers with (better) success.