Battery Charger

[Wilddog3]

Is it bad to leave the battery charger on after the batteries are full? I have a minn kota 3 bank charger. I generally just leave it plugged in until the next time I use my boat which is about twice a week.

[Wilddog3]

bump

[Lea]

I don't, but I know a lot of folks do. I have a Dual Pro 3 bank and was told by dealer, to unplug when batteries are charged. Yet, other folks say they leave them on all the time..

Wish I knew what to tell you. Have you checked in the General Bassboat Topics forum here on BBC? Might be some more opinions there..

[Lpolk]

That would depend how long between fishing trips. I plug mine after a fishing trip, if the next trip is longer than two weeks I will check my batteries, then plug it back in for a day or two, so and so on. I think that as long as you keep them fully charged you will be ok.

[Royjulius]

I leave mine plugged in when I'm going every week. When the batteries are full, they just stop drawing. All leaving them plugged in does is allow them to draw if they lose some charge. Sounds like you go out often enough that you are better off to leave it plugged in.

[milly@candoparts]

to keep from taking that chance on your charger, just get you a trickle charger. you can leave it hooked up to the battery all the time and it wont hurt a thing. when the battery is charged it will basically "go to sleep".
thanks
sammy
c&o marine

[lwlittle]

Give Jim at StayNCharge a call - he will give you a godd reason not to. I talked to him this week and he says the 1 amp trickle charge can burn the water off.

[Lea]

Years ago, my Champion dealer warned me not to leave charger on all the time. He said it would boil the water out.

I just leave mine on long enough for all leds to show green.....and never have had a problem.....

[SteveDyer]

Most higher end chargers now have a maintenance cycle after they are full charged where you leave them plugged in. Read your owners manual or download one.

Water....who uses water in batteries anymore??

[Tx Champ]

An engineer at Dual Pro told me 3-4 years ago that once their charger goes green, it shuts off all charge current and is in a monitor mode.

Just to be on the safe side, I have a timer on mine set to turn the chargers on for about an hour a day. When I come in off the lake, I set it for about a 4-hour charge, then let the daily timer take over. Keeps me from worrying about them over the winter as well.

For those of us that still use flooded cell batteries, don't foget to check your water level about once a month or so. Maintain the level with distilled water only ...

[Lea]

My boat came with sealed cranker, but flooded cell TM...
I have since switched to zero maintenance, but I have had great success with flooded cell... Just a durned nuisance!!!!

[Tx Champ]

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Lea &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">...Just a durned nuisance!!!!</TD></TR></TABLE>

That's for sure ... I end up having to service mine 3-4 times a year.

[lwlittle]

Check out this...I have one installed and it works great - no meesing around with removing the caps to check and fill your batteries. I just top mine up after a I charged them 2 or 3 times. Flow-Rite Qwik-Fill

http://www.basspro.com/webapp/...Id=-1

http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CFPage?mode=article&objectID=29817&storeId=10151&c atalogId=10001&langId=-1

[Tx Champ]

I had a set of those when they first came out. After a short period of time they started leaking. I apparently wasn't the only one with the issue. Roger Miller with Flow-Rite was most helpful and replaced them, but I have not ever installed those.