Dead Battery - No Warning

[MWS]

This thread is also a good segue into trickle charging. I use a tender over the winter, but I've actually heard that longer battery life can be achieved by allowing the charge to fully disapate (dead battery) before recharging. I have seen benefits to this theory in power tools, but then again they are either NiCd or Lithium. Is there an electrical engineer here that can put this to rest?

[kk2002s]

Had exact same experience. Drove 60 miles to visit my daughter. We went over to store, came out dead battery.
Someone offer to jump start me (I carry jumper cables) and off I went. Had to jump start to come home the 60 miles in the dark with head lights on. Good thing my alternator was strong

I now display battery voltage with my Torque app on my phone. Shows sitting voltage and running voltage. That would have told me my battery was on the way out as well as the state of my alternator

[stephen wilson]

Originally Posted by MWS

This thread is also a good segue into trickle charging. I use a tender over the winter, but I've actually heard that longer battery life can be achieved by allowing the charge to fully disapate (dead battery) before recharging. I have seen benefits to this theory in power tools, but then again they are either NiCd or Lithium. Is there an electrical engineer here that can put this to rest?

No, lead acid batteries lose capacity every time they are fully discharged. IIRC it's the NiCd and NiMH batteries that had a "memory".