Just wanted to follow up on the Oreilly Batteries I bought. I did a lot of reading about batteries. Apparently brand new batteries can really benefit from a bit of a break-in. I got a lot of good info on this page:
https://www.cartsunlimited.net/battery-break-in-.html as well as this youtube video:
But the basic idea is this, charge a battery up to full with a slower charger 2-10 amps. Then put the battery on a float charge, I did this to let the battery rest. waited until the next day.
Make sure you pop the vent caps open, and fill distilled water until it reaches the bottom of the vent plastic, the water should go from looking flat to looking concaved, if it was low and you filled it. Once the water looks concaved STOP, thats the spot you want it, you don't want it overfull.
Now put a load on your battery and drop it to like 10.5 - 11 volts (use a resistive load, you can leave your headlights on to drain the battery, but what I did was use a DC power inverter and hooked up a space heater to it on its lowest setting, this saw a 50-90 amp draw depending on state of battery)
Make sure to watch the battery voltage closely, DO NOT DRAIN IT DOWN TOO FAR!!! The MP0515A also has a "wave button" this shows the voltage as well as a line graph for the voltage, I used this to monitor the voltage. I drained mine down until my voltage meter said 10.6, the moment I turned my space heater off it shot up to 11.5 or so.
Now you want to
IMMEDIATELY start charging the battery, use a 6-10 amp charger for the bulk of the charging (8-12 hours) Once the bulk charging is done you should be around 14.5-15 volts.
Once the bulk charging is done, you want to switch to an Equalization charge. For this I switched my charger from 10amp setting to its 40 amp setting. My charger is a very heavy (on wheels) battery charger, it has a 40amp continuous or 200 amp start. This is the type of charger you want to use, it will get the battery up to around 17-17.4 volts, and the liquid in the battery will begin to bubble. I also used a non contact lazer thermometer to measure the temperature of the outside of the battery, mine never got to hot, under 100, and to feel the outside of the battery it only felt warm. If you are in a hotter climate in the middle of summer then this could possibly be more of an issue than it was for me. I ran it at the 40 amp until the amp meter on my charger dropped down to about 12 amps, meaning the battery was now taking less of a charge. (it was about 2 hours I think) One way you can be sure it has finished is by checking with a battery hydrometer every 30 minutes, if the readings stay the same 3 times in a row then its unlikely its going to charge any farther. I read this tip somewhere too.
Once you are satisfied with the equalization charge, you can either put it on a float charger or leave it unhooked and let it rest.
I still need to do the other batteries, and I think I will equalize charge them once a year before winter (the rest of the year they have a float charger on them). I only did one battery so far, after I equalize charged it, I completely unhooked it from the charger and let it rest for 8 hours, here is the result:
I found my charger used locally, but if you cannot find one of the old style heavy chargers, then you might be able to use a welder, obviously you would need to be more careful with the welder: