Battery maintainers...

[Uncle Gump]

I've been through all of that and have drawn my conclusion.

My minimum use and history of short trips... coupled with the questionable quality of current day batteries... has me replacing my battery annually.

I'm gonna give a maintainer a try and see if i can get a battery to last close to its warranty period.

 

[Shran]

I've kept my crawler rig on a maintainer all the time for many years. The battery that's in it now is a Duralast Platinum AGM that I bought in 2012... have a couple of other normal lead acid batteries that are nearing 10 years old too. Maintainers flat out work.

 

[Blmpkn]

I've been through all of that and have drawn my conclusion.

My minimum use and history of short trips... coupled with the questionable quality of current day batteries... has me replacing my battery annually.

I'm gonna give a maintainer a try and see if i can get a battery to last close to its warranty period.

Walmart has some decent battery warranty stuff going on.. super cheap batteries too. The fancier the battery the longer the warranty is... But I bought their bottom of the barrel 70$ battery for an old Cadillac I owned a couple years ago and it came with a year warranty..

Not that great of a warranty no... But well under half the price of the same group size battery from crapa

 

[Uncle Gump]

Well after two amazon failed to deliver my stuff... the Battery Tender charger showed up yesterday. The battery pigtail and extension came today.

So yesterday afternoon I went out and started the truck. Plenty of battery to fire right up. Then I hooked up the Battery Tender and started topping off the battery. It took from 3pm to 5:30am for the green charge indicator to start flashing. I checked again at 9am and had a steady green light. So it took about 18 hours to bring that battery to full and switch to maintenance mode.

I have a good feeling this will fix my battery issues in this truck. But time will tell I guess.

Gonna head out and wire in the pigtail with the SAE connector.

So the fun begins with me remembering not only to unhook it but to hook it up in the first place.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Its too bad no one makes magnetic connections.

 

[Curious Hound]

Its too bad no one makes magnetic connections.

Ooh. That would be cool. Might not be good for 120vac. But for 12volts dc, low current things like this, a magnetic connector would be awesome.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Its too bad no one makes magnetic connections.

SHOP

www.voltsafewinter.com

 

[Uncle Gump]

That one appears to be a 120v plug.

I need just 2 wires... 12v positive a 12v negative.

Would sure help to not pull wires and cause a mess.

Really needs to be a covered connector too...

My battery pigtail is too short. Was going to take more time then I had today.

 

[Curious Hound]

Here we go. This stuff is awesome

Amazon.com: Werks Gruppe ChargeSafe - Magnetic Trickle Charger Adapter | 6V - 12V Quick Connect and Disconnect Method for Any Charger, Black, WG-MCA-002 : Automotive

Amazon.com: Werks Gruppe ChargeSafe - Magnetic Trickle Charger Adapter | 6V - 12V Quick Connect and Disconnect Method for Any Charger, Black, WG-MCA-002 : Automotive

www.amazon.com

 

[Uncle Gump]

Here we go. This stuff is awesome

Amazon.com: Werks Gruppe ChargeSafe - Magnetic Trickle Charger Adapter | 6V - 12V Quick Connect and Disconnect Method for Any Charger, Black, WG-MCA-002 : Automotive

Amazon.com: Werks Gruppe ChargeSafe - Magnetic Trickle Charger Adapter | 6V - 12V Quick Connect and Disconnect Method for Any Charger, Black, WG-MCA-002 : Automotive

www.amazon.com

Dang...

There went @alwaysFlOoReD million dollar idea.

They sure are proud of that thing.

Probably gonna extend what I have but that gizmo looks pretty good.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

@Uncle Gump
I was assuming that the battery maintainer was permanent in your truck, and that it was plugged into shore power. That's why I looked for 120V connector. There are magnetic 12V as well.

 

[Uncle Gump]

I think I like the battery tender...

Last time I drove my truck was last Thursday afternoon. Short trip to the store and back. Didn't reconnect the tender... but I did look at it before disconnect and it had my battery at what it had deemed peak (green light). Was out doing some fall clean up stuff and noticed I hadn't connected it back up. Normally... my truck would have been a no start... especially with the cold we've had for a couple days. Got my keys and it had great cranking speed and fired right up.

So at least for my test case... occasional use and mainly short trip.... I'm sold on these things.

 

[JoshT]

I'm a little late to the discussion, but thought I'd add my 2 cent. I definitely recommend a tender for any low use vehicles and am a fan of the NOCO brand ones. They are a great addition as long as you think to plug them in.

The 2000 F-250 7.3L is bad about going through batteries, largely because it sits a lot, and it's got two big (relatively) expensive batteries. I don;t drive it every week and if it sits more than about three days it becomes very hard to start. At this point I'm pretty certain that I've got leaking injector o-rings letting the high pressure oil rail leak down. If not plugged into the tender between drives it can easily drain the batteries while trying to get the rail filled back up and pressurized. Plugging it in doesn't help with the leaking issue, but the batteries do stay charged long enough to actually start the truck. On the last set of batteries it also seemed to help pro-long their life, can't really say about this set because I neglect to plug it in a lot of the time and it'll be moving to the next owner in a few weeks.

Also works great as a small portable charger (corded, but small end easy to move around) that I easily can stick on any of the batteries if needed. The F-100 is another of the low use vehicles, only leaves the yard a couple of times a year. Regularly stick one on there to charge up and move it around the yard. Will be getting one of the 2A onboard chargers and installing on it permanent. It's hopefully going into the shop to start a rebuild/resto next year and will get used a lot more after, but it'll get plugged in most of the time it's not used to keep it ready to go. Between a fresh engine, transmission upgrade, and some AC it whould be a lot better to drive year around. The last part is why it sits a lot now. It sits for an extended period and it needs work. I get it up and going then the heat hits and it sits again. When I was younger, I didn't mind the no AC thing driving a first gen Ranger. These days if it doesn't have AC I'm not driving it in the summer heat, around here that's most of the year.