Should New Batteries be Equalized?

[Bowedtoothdoc]

I just purchased new house batteries that consist of six 6 volt batteries wired into two separate banks. Bank one consists of two batteries and bank two is the remaining four. They are now fully charged according to my Magnum battery monitor. Should they be equalized at this point or is that something that should be done after some use? I want them to last as long as possible...Ps. My charger is a Magnum 2800 pure sine inverter/charger and I also have installed their additional battery monitor.

 

[Don S/V ILLusion]

No. Run them through a few cycles first and monitor charge rate for a while in routine use to get a baseline as well as allowing the bank to cycle. Equalizing them now will serve no purpose.

 

[Stu Jackson]

Don's right.

Also consider this:

Breaking in New Wet Cell Batteries: http://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,6353.0.html

 

[Bowedtoothdoc]

Guys, Thanks for the info and the link!