Here's the update for informational purposes as to just how important trickle chargers are to extending battery life. It took 36+ hours for the battery in my CL500 to fully charge! As the light stayed green, I then put the charger back on the 360. It stayed on the 360 overnight, and then Sunday AM when I took out the 360, I put the charger back onto the CL500 battery. It charged that CL500 battery for more than another 12 hours! Was I ever surprised. Moral: Batteries need constant charging to maintain their lives. This has been an experience beyond which I thought was necessary. This is an educational week for sure!
In the yachting business batteries are an important consideration as well for energy management. Here's an easy way to figure battery management. Let's say a battery has a 100 amp hour capacity. If you take it down to 50% the battery is in effect "dead". What that means is you can use 50 amp hours to power the toys, alarms etc. If you leave an interior light on that consumes 2 amps it will take 25 hours to bring your battery to 50% or dead. Thus if you have a trickle charger and it can put back 1-2 amps per hour it will take 25-50 hours to recharge it. Now this isn't the end, there are still issues with bulk and float charging, and acceptance rates, but enough at this point. Sorry to be so long winded, just thought it might interest some
Craig, Those are good points for sure. It appears that when you re-charge a battery by trickle there is a recharge due shortly thereafter. It appears that the battery reaches a preliminary peak and then settles back requiring another charge. When I return the charger to the 360, it does not take long for the green light to come back on. With my CL500 that I drive maybe once a month for only 20-30 miles it takes considerably longer for that green light to come on. Now the green will start flashing upon reconnection to the charger indicating that 80% charge state has been achieved. Of course, it is just a recent occurence that I have used the trickle charger on the CL500, but I will continue to do so now.
