What do you do with yours when you are away for an extended time?

[Sophie Wolcott]

We have a 1985 Catalina 30 sailboat in the Metro Atlanta area. (Lake Lanier) When we had dual 92Ah AGM batteries, we basically just ignored them (Winter/Summer). Now that we are in the process of replacing the AGMs with an EPOCH 300Ah V2 LFP do we need to do anything when we go away? (Varies from several weeks to several months at a time, not always known ahead of time.) I've read a lot where they say to not leave an LFP battery fully charged, but we have solar charging with just a small Rule 500 gph automatic bilge pump to draw power.

 

[air squid]

What you can do is leave the charger plugged in and batteries on. Internal heating only works from the charger power and not the batteries. Then they are not in a max state of charge and in storage. And really being that they are readily available for use by the bilge pump they aren't inactive. You can also leave a couple small LED lights going as a small load to keep them a bit more active and cycling on charge.