Hope. Shining Hope.
That’s our Airstream’s name. She’s been hibernating for two months now.
We’re so grateful to be blessed with a shed that will keep our Hope covered for the winter, out of the snow, sleet, and rain, until such time we decide to put the Interstate batteries back in her, and prep for the first voyage of 2017.
I was charging those SRM24 Interstates while they were in Hope, and every 3 or 4 days I’d have to go out and check the voltage on them, so they wouldn’t drain too much to do damage. We have access to shore power in our shed, and I’d just put the Use/Store switch in Use mode to charge the batteries. I’d let them charge for an 8 hour period or so, then go back in there and switch her over to Store mode.
You see, we haven’t replaced the stock converter on our Hope yet, and the fact that the batteries were still connected caused certain phantom loads in our Hope to draw down the voltage within less than a week. Sure enough, in a couple days or so, the batteries would discharge to the point I’d have to repeat the process over. It soon became annoying.
So, I went out there one day and removed those Interstates from Hope. I brought them in to our attached garage, and charged them with a new Battery Tender Plus 1.25 amp charger. I removed the charger after they were all charged up, and have been monitoring the voltage on them regularly.
I really didn’t note the date that I did this, sorry, but I’m fairly certain it was some time around October 15th, possibly a week later, not sure. But it was definitely before November kicked in around here. In any event, it appears to have been a good move on my part.
Friends, it’s been around 2 months since I charged the Interstates in our garage, and they currently remain charged better than 75%. I think I’ll recharge when they fall to 75% exactly. What a worthwhile initiative it was a few months back to remove the batteries and bring them in to our garage.
Might we change out our Parallax converter to the Progressive Dynamics 4655 with remote some day? You bet. But after discussion of the matter, we chose to wait until our warranty period is up. When we do make the change, we’ll most likely go here to do so:
http://www.bestconverter.com/4600-series-Upgrade-Kits_c_133.html
If you’d like to read a bit on what Interstate has to say about the SRM24’s, and deep cycle batteries in general, click this link:
http://www.interstatedealers.com/pdf/200004.pdf
Respectfully,
Majorairhead
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