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 RJ> again was to put a charger on the battery once a month or so 
 RJ> over the winter or however long it was sitting for,  and then a 
 RJ> full charge before they went to use it.  This actually cost me 
 RJ> some sales,  but I think that those people were happy enough 
 RJ> that I ended up with more customers...
 AC> You seem optimistic. On average customers don't wish to think 
 AC> these problems, they just want things to work.
Yeah,  there were a lot of people who didn't want to hear this,  didn't want 
to be bothered,  and *especially* people who ended up negligent and didn't 
want to pay the price of a new battery...
 AC> Important that you keep your chosen trolling battery, at the 
 AC> manufacturer's recommended "floating" voltage.
 RJ> Maybe one of these days I'll call the mfr. and ask them about it...
 AC> Gel battery makers [eg YUASA] may have it on the battery side. 
 AC> For Plante and Faure batteries, we were told 2.25 to 2.35 v/ 
 AC> cell. 
That'd be 13.5 - 14.1 for a "12v" unit,  sounds like the upper end would be a 
little high...
Yuasa I'm familiar with,  not those other names,  though.
 AC> These days, most generating stations have AC driven essential 
 AC> auxiliaries [eg water pumps in nuclear plants] that are driven 
 AC> by intelligent inverters. By intelligent, I mean AC volts 
 AC> output maintained within 2% even tho the dc volts run from plus 
 AC> 2% to minus 30%.
Sounds good to me.  I wish that I could find some inexpensive inverter 
hardware out there,  or perhaps a computer power supply which would have a 12 
volt input,  with power for the monitor and modem available...    
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