All above sounds like what I've used, that is to charge to 100% every few months to allow the cells to balance, never let the battery drain completely (it was unavoidable once and dropped to 10% or so and I charged it partially as soon as I arrived home) and maintain between 20% & 80% (you should be able to find a "V graph for 36V that depicts charge vs %of full charge)so that even with a "dumb" (pardon the expression) charger, you can maintain it within those boundaries. One addition: I don't charge below 50F (very easy in socal).