The little maintainers have their place, not only to prevent a dead battery when you need to use a rarely used machine, but also to prevent the battery killing sulphation that results from a battery setting for a long time when partially discharged.
I use a pair of charger/ maintainer / desulphator units called the battery MINDer which is sold by Northern Tool.
At $40, their more expensive than the little maintainers, but the desulphator feature seems to have enough value in extending battery life, that the extra cost is justified.
As to battery type, I disagree with JD on his assessment of the value of the spiral cell AGM batteries built by Optima and Exide Orbital.
JD says he had no luck with AGM batteries in a home power storage situation and seems to have a bit of a grudge against them. I will not argue about the storage deal, as I have no experience there, but my 20 years of experience with them as an engine starting battery, makes me conclude there the best thing since sliced bread in a starting lighting ignition situation with a good well regulated charging system.
I am nearing 2 dozen of the Optima and Exide Orbital AGM batteries in my fleet of farm equippment for our 2000 acre farm. As the old flooded cell batteries die, I replace them with the spiral cell AGM units.
Most of my farm equippment is seasonal use where the machine sits unused for as much as 10 months per year. The spiral cell AGM batteries cost $140 for the Exide Orbital and $160 for the Optima. Pretty expensive compared to a cheap flooded cell battery, but they last many time longer. I can't believe it when I read that folks are satisfied with as little as 3-5 years life from a battery, the spiral cell AGM's have very long life if treated correctly. The only one that has failed for me was a much abused Optima that died at 16 years. The majority(60%) of my spiral cell AGM batteries are Exide Orbitals that are 10+ years old and work like new, many of them in large 450-900 CI diesel machines that work a battery hard.
You never have to deal with corroded battery cables and battery boxes with the sealed AGM batteries, plus they self discharge at a much slower rate than the flooded cell batteries.
I rotate the BatteryMINDer, charger/maintainer/ desulphator units to each stored machine about every 2 months, with usually 24-48 hrs on each machine before moving to the next.
You can really see the difference in self discharg rate between the flooded cell VS the AGM batteries. Attaching the charger/ maintainer/ desulphator to a flooded cell battery after two months lay over usually takes about 3-4 hours of trickle charging before the charger switches from charge to desulphate. Attach the charger / desulphator to one of the spiral cell AGM equipped machines will usually switch from charge to desulphate within 1 hour. The spiral cell AGM design also is very rugged in machines that have a lot of vibration.
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