you can leave the charger plugged in and when the batts are charged the charger willl shut off and when they hit a certain voltage it will turn back on its a maintenvce type thing.......however my concern would be any power spikes or things out of your control but with good batteries if you fully charge them they should last the winter or you can go out and charge them every 6 weeks or so but your charger is made to leave plugged in for long peroids of time.......no need to disconnect any cables either...................................