On 02/16/11 03:22 pm, philo wrote:

I ignore hams when it comes to battery equipment and pay attention to
people who trust their lives to their batteries,
http://www.morganscloud.com/2011/02/...-battery-life/

I'll check that out.

You can take my advice or leave it...
that's up to you.

I'm a senior service engineer who's been in the (lead acid) battery
business for 36 years.

I assure you that "float charging" a battery is not rocket science
and you do not have to get too fancy

(but if you want to, that's fine )

I know that I can connect a *suitable* P/S set to an appropriate voltage
to "float" my batteries *if that is all I want to do* (my little Astron
"switcher" is doing it right now), but I was hoping to get or build
something that will handle the initial phases of charging a
significantly discharged battery then switch automatically to "float" mode.

"Perce"