I decided to leave my batteries in the boat this year and leave my Minn Kota 3 bank charger plugged in out in the cold. The boat is covered! I'm just wondering if anyone knows how much electricity these chargers burn.
Charger Power Usage!
I decided to leave my batteries in the boat this year and leave my Minn Kota 3 bank charger plugged in out in the cold. The boat is covered! I'm just wondering if anyone knows how much electricity these chargers burn.
Following.!! I would like to know too.
Very little once the batteries reach full charge the first time. To approximate the maximum power, multiply the total current the charger supplies (e.g. for a 3 bank 10A charger you have 30A) by 14.7 then divide by 0.85. This will give you power in Watts and account for inefficiency. For a 3 bank 10A charger, you have (3x10Ax14.7V)/0.85=about 519W. Assuming nothing draws batteries down, at storage conditions use 1A and 13.4V, so for a 3 bank charger you’d have (3x1Ax13.4V)=about 47.3W. These are maximum numbers so reality will probably be less.
A timer that kicks in once or twice week for a few hours is also an option.
If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity,
nothing else matters.
So if I'm seeing this right, It's less then a 60 watt light bulb.
For the Dual Pro owners, even less; has an environmental float stage lasting 30 days where there is O amps going to the batteries. No real benefit of placing a Dual Pro on a timer or manually pluggng in to try to top off charge, which will actually result in the charger needlessly going through a full charge cycle wasting power.
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