Hello:

Over the past weekend I replaced our two house batteries (two 6-volt golf cart GC2). It looks like we got about 8 years out of the old ones, with light use. When I say light use, the batteries are usually kept at full capacity as we are either on the road or on shore power, not much rough camping. I thought with such light use we may have been able to get 10-12 years out of them.

While talking to the dealer where I bought the new batteries, he said that often times they only last a few years and that RVs by nature can be bad for batteries in that they tend to sit for a long time in storage (even if hooked up to a smart charger). I have read on this issue as well, and that it is good to "exercise" the battery occasionally, by draining it down to close to 50% of its capacity then charging back up. We have the Progressive Dynamics smart charger that is used when we are on shore power, and when in storage I hook up an external BatteryMinder with the desulfation mode. But I was curious if anybody knows of an external charger that can occasionally drain and recharge it when it's in storage and do the desulfation all in one. I've been looking and so far haven't found something for RV or automotive use.

I will post back if I find anything, just curious if anybody had looked in to this before.

Chris

In order to prevent Battery Stratification, an Equalization Charge(increasing charging voltage to 14.4-volts) must be applied periodically.
The Charge Wizard automatically selects its EQUALIZATION MODE (14.4 volts) every 21 hours for a period of 15 minutes

Well I ended up making the plunge and got the VDC Batteryminder 128CEC1. If I can get more than 10 years out of these new batteries (Trojan T-105), then I'll be happy. Already I'm impressed with how well it works. It has 3 different amp settings for charging and it defaults to 2 amp, giving you the option to step it up if you want (I leave it on 2 as I'm usually in no hurry and it's better for the batteries). It does the desulfation just like the basic units, but also measures ambient temp to avoid overboiling in warm conditions. What I like most is the fact it will automatically load test the batteries every 12 hours and it will indicate if that fails, hopefully warning me of dying batteries. I too , like others posted, have been extremely happy with the VDC Batteryminder basic units for many years. I keep them on all of my batteries and have consistently gotten upwards of 11 years on the better brands, and 7-8 on the really cheap brands. So, crossing fingers for many more years!!