Posted by gmharris [71.105.36.171] on Saturday, September 14, 2013 at 19:57:10 :
In Reply to: Thanks Tom and Paul. Another question.... posted by Jerry in Idaho [24.223.94.244] on Saturday, September 14, 2013 at 18:56:45 :
If the batteries are equal, there is no problem.
If one battery won't reach the resting voltage of the other, then you may have a problem. The weak battery will always try to pull down the strong battery.
It depends, somewhat on what kind of battery maintainer you're buying. Some have a charging cycle. If the batteries won't reach a set voltage, the charger will continuously try to reach a float voltage. That can boil off the electrolyte in the batteries.
I'd just put the maintainer on one battery at a time to see if they will reach the float voltage. If the maintainer can reach the float voltage on both batteries, you are probably O.K. to connect both of them.
I think the ideal situation is not to interconnect the batteries. I'd see what the manufacturer of the battery maintainer says.
I use Battery Tender Junior's with good results. They manufacture battery tenders for use with multiple batteries, but they are quite a bit more expensive.
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