Location: Green Bay, WI | Shep - 5/2/2012 7:49 AM
"Unless you take all your batteries out of the boat when it's in Winter storage, and then place them on a trickle charger, they are going to discharge."
This is simply not true. In fact, the cold temps slow down the rate of self discharge, assuming a fully charged battery, and no drain on it. Before I had this house, I kept my boats outside in the winter. Fully charge the battery, disconnect the cables, and put it to bed for the winter. Come back 3 months later, and the batteries were nearly fully charged. Kept them plugged in during the summer after every trip, and I have had batteries last over 5 years.
SNIP...
Actually, I somewhat beg to differ. As far as I know, unless stored at absolute zero all batteries discharge to some degree. While you are correct that the rate of self-discharge is lower in colder temps, they will still self-discharge when cold. And whether or not the degree of discharge results in excess sulphation or not is debatable, and probably dependent upon the age and general condition of the battery going in to the storage period.
But the other thing to worry about though with keeping these things cold (as in below-freezing temps), is freezing. In my experience, unless you keep an eye on the level of electrolyte in the battery, you risk it freezing and breaking the plastic case. Of course this is much less likely to happen when the battery has a charge, so I'll agree that providing you can completely isolate the battery from the system, then this would less likely.
Here are a couple references on lead-acid batteries.
http://www.mpoweruk.com/leadacid.htm
http://www.thebatteryterminal.com/TechTalk_Batteries_on_Concrete.ht...
TB |
