Solar pond filter battery over winter

[GillObrien]

Hi all,

I removed my solar pump from the pond filter for the winter, because it is attached to.an accumulator battery and there isn't enough light to reach the threshold for it to turn on. I left the small fountain in to aerate the water a but as it runs on low light.

My understanding is that if I leave the battery all winter it will discharge and then won't be any good next year. So I wondered what my options are. I assume:

- plug it in to charge it - but how often? And does it need to be used at this point?
- put the battery and solar panel out the front where there is more light and just leave it there for the winter, charging but not doing anything. It would be protected but the temperature will be below zero at night for a couple of months.

The instructions just say to charge it a couple of times over winter, but won't it just discharge in between anyway?

Many thanks,
Gill

 

[Why Not Indeed]

If it's not connected, it will self-discharge, but very slowly. The worst thing you can do with it is to leave it at 100% or 0% for a long period of time. So my advice would be to charge it half way, disconnect it and keep it indoors [don't actually know what the cold does to batteries, other than slow down the rate at which they can charge/discharge] until the days are longer.