Hi Channel Jumper

Sorry for such a late reply, once again you had no understanding of my
question.

Your answer, while long and interesting was either a duplication of answers
already given or had nothing to do with my question.

But thanks anyway, nice try again, I will take the other's advice again this
time.

My batteries are fine, I can charge them in parrellel if I like, but
remember they must be equals.
Do the math you say Channel?? lol,,, And another reason why your answer
lacks logic is that you don't understand I live in an area that has a 50%
discount on electrical consumption for 12 hours during the evening and early
morning. So that is why I talked about night time charging. i know, I know,,
nickles and dimes, but after a few weeks of 10 or 15 amp charging, or 1000
or 2000 watts at .08c per kwh it sure adds up at the end of the month. Its
all a state of mind. Do you turn your light out when you leave a room?

Your estimate Channel Jumper of 4 years for deep cycle batteries I can
correct for you, my last deep cycle batteries lasted 8 or 9 years and I ran
them down every fishing time by the downrigger balls up and down 30 tims a
trip along with all the electronics and radio, lights, phones, 2m rig, vhf
marine radio, etc etc. And I kept them stored somtimes in basement,
sometimes left in boat, most times stored in garage for winter season
without charge. So where did you get your "4 year life" from? Your own
experience? Maybe I should give you some advice.


Thanks for all the advice everyone,,,,I appreciate every word of it.

73s





"Channel Jumper" wrote in message
...

Well,
I read a lot of intelligent information on this post and some not
intelligent information.
I think that what your problem is - is that instead of using your
noggin, you want to buy something that will do your thinking for you.

If you have 4 batteries, and you connect it to a 10 amp charger, you
will still place a 10 amp charge upon the batteries, but to the
batteries, it will look more like a 2.5 amp charger - since it is
dividing the current between them.

I have seen some cheap people in my life, but I will guess the OP takes
the cake. If you think that a 10 amp charger is going to make your
electric bill go up or down by regulating the power being applied to the
battery at day vs night - you are only fooling yourself.

Until you understand a charge vs. a surface charge, you will never
understand what events are taking place within the batteries.
I liked the analogy of someone using diodes to isolate each battery.
But a even better solution is to use those batteries as a battery bank,
say on a transistor radio - police scanner would be a good example.

If you charge the batteries nearly full charge and you use those
batteries for a couple of days or even a week at a time, you will create
a cycle, which will keep the batteries at optimum power - slow down the
calcification on the battery plates and keep the one good battery from
being killed by the one junk battery that doesn't store as much power.

The other thing is - if you are stupid enough to use a trolling motor
with a deep cycle battery until you run it down to nothing, then you
ought to be willing to replace those batteries every 4 years, because
even though they say deep cycle - you are squeezing the life out of them
when you discharge them beyond 10.5 volts DC.

Your battery charger is not a power generating station - it doesn't work
like 3 mile island. It will create a charge sufficient enough to
recharge a battery to the point of where it is useable again and then it
will reduce the amount of current, so it does not over heat the plates
in the battery.
The fold back on the charger is sufficient enough to protect the
batteries, but once the VOM - and this is the missing link in your
hardware - once the VOM shows 13.7 volts - the battery holds as much
power as it can possibly hold... Like a cup of water, what happens when
you over fill it? The excess product spills out.

Batteries by nature are dirty.
The dirt, acid etc on the battery creates a discharge because the
current flows out of the battery through the dielectric to ground.
The other thing I didn't read is what you placed the batterys on?
Wood is prefered, but some rubber mats might not be bad either, as long
as they are thick enough and kept clean.
A heavy truck mud flap would probably work well.

The missing link in this post is to advise you not to connect the
batteries either in series or in parrellel, but to PURCHASE a BATTERY
TENDER...
This takes all the guess work out of keeping your batteries charged.

Even if you watch a couple of episodes of American Chopper, eventually
you will see someone go to the battery rack and pull out a fresh battery
from the rack. How do you think they keep those batteries charged?
Do you think that they use a mindless battery charger? Or do you think
that they use a Battery Tender or some other commercial battery
charger?

Do the math - if they build a dozen motorcycles a week, how many
batteries does that add up to at the end of the year?




--
Channel Jumper