Quote Originally Posted by EarmarkMarine View Post
However, deep cycles that are seriously discharged are another story.
David your right there, one should never hook any seriously discharged battery up to a tender and expect it to do the job regardless of what it's in. A tenders purpose is, as i said, is maintenance and not meant to restore any battery seriously drained. If one were to use a tender, like i do, i always make sure my batts are up to speed before connecting to the tender. And i do that by using the boat or i top them off with a higher amperage charger at home after. They're out of the boat off season and stay on a tender all winter out of the cold. Consequently i'm on year three with the same batts without issues with a personal best of four.

Now that being said i also do realize that some people load their boats up (just like cars, RV's, etc.) with all kinds of audio gear and goodies pushing the limits of the system and then have to make amends for doing so, like not paying attention to details like batteries but i also feel some of the stuff being added these days is just overkill too. Just my opinions, i learned years ago (dating myself) when batteries were nowhere near as good as now and AGM was a dream how to take care of them and make them last. Try running race cars and track trailers on deep cycles long term and see how long they last!