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Posted by Desoto61 [138.162.0.41] on Wednesday, July 06, 2011 at 11:58:45 :
In Reply to: batteries posted by Dana (in Lancaster) [71.232.236.112] on Wednesday, July 06, 2011 at 11:33:02 :
All batteries have some natural loss of charge when they are sitting, even if disconnected. Some designs are better than others, but even sitting on a shelf fully charged a battery will eventually discharge on its own.
The other half of that problem is that draining a normal lead-acid battery down very low is about the worst thing you can do to them. It will shorten their life severely.
So if it set on a shelf for three years without a periodic recharge or a battery tender it was dead, recharging it VERY slowly might have saved it but it would never be full strength again.
This is one advantage of the Optima batteries. Their parasitic drain while sitting is almost 0. The do not recommend a battery tender unless it will sit for more than a year disconnected.