Hi Barry, I ran into a similar issue with my 52 Chevy pickup after
installing an alarm and XM radio that would drain the battery between runs.
My solution was to go to OSH and buy a small automotive battery charger and
control it with a digital timer. Works great-- I set it for a few hours each
night. 
Regards, Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: psnlist-request@.............. [mailto:psnlist-request@...............
On Behalf Of Brett Nordgren
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2012 8:57 AM
To: psnlist@..............
Subject: Re: station battery maintaining

Barry,

Here's an outfit that sells regulators and chargers for boats and wind/solar
power systems.  Way more than you need, but they have a great deal of good
information about the care and feeding of batteries.  One thing they address
is the fact that the ideal charging voltage for a battery varies somewhat
with its temperature.  They have regulators that use temperature probes to
get their voltage exactly right.  They also address the technique of
equalization charging, where you charge at well over the normal voltage for
short periods in order to get all cells equally and fully charged.  With
proper care, batteries can last quite a long time.

http://amplepower.com

Dave may want to check in on this, too.  He has assembled quite a good UPS
system, though I think he's also trying to provide some emergency AC power
for his whole house.

Brett

At 11:34 PM 10/31/2012, you wrote:
>Hi All
>I have got my station components to work on 12 vts DC thru the use of 
>DC/DC converters.My thought was that the DC/DC converters are more 
>efficient than wall warts and a UPS and the battery would last longer 
>on a power outage.  I would like to have the system  run on a battery 
>with something to maintain the battery health while under an approx 1 
>to 2  amp load. . The problem is what to use to keep the battery 
>charged but also healthy. I tried a 1.5 vt charger/maintainer which 
>worked for ~ 2 years. I am not sure whether it's the battery or the 
>maintainer which is malfunctioning. I can go into what I have done 
>recently . My question is would a possible scheme be to run a 6 amp 
>charger on a wall timer work to cycle the battery and prevent 
>sulfation?  Maybe shutting off the charger for say 8 hrs each day then 
>put back on a 6 amp charge would work.
>Alternatively is there a product  I could use to have battery maintain 
>charge and capacity for a reasonably long period of time.
>
>Regards
>Barry
>www.seismicvault.com
>


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