First, find out why the battery is being drained, inadequately charged, or
maybe it is bad. I regularly park my vans and other cars for 3-4 weeks
without use and never have a problem unless something is wrong. If the
battery discharged during freezing weather it is bad anyway. In fact, for
most starting batteries, once they go flat they will not recover.

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
Ellen in Oregon
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 9:02 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Trickle charging battery with something other than solar?

This is my first year of ownership and I am still learning.  Lola resides
in
the garage when she's not out camping (which is about once a month).  The
battery went entirely flat recently (less than 5 volts).  A 1 amp trickle
charger brought it back up, but since the charger has been disconnected,
I've noticed the voltage has dropped slightly over the past couple of
days.
So I spent some time on Harbor Freight, specifically this page:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Category.taf?CategoryID=444&pricetyp
e=

I'd like some opinions here.  Where Lola is garaged is right next to an
electrical outlet, so I could hook something up that would keep the
battery
charged.  What would be best?  Would that battery float charger at the top
of the page be what I'm looking for, or do I need to spend some more money
and get something better?  Or is my battery at the end of its life and I
should just get a new one?  I  have no idea how old the battery is, no one
bothered to scratch out the dots on the calendar sticker.

Next camping trip is less than a month away so naturally I'm intent on
solving this dilemma before then.

Thanks for all help,

Ellen
Lola, '85 Vanagon ASI

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