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Battery charger for off-season storage?

J

jimn

Advanced Contributor
I want to be able to keep my batteries charged over the Winter, so they won't die prematurely (as one did last Winter), so I'm looking for some opinions- I have seen all kinds of different ones, but I was told by someone at Interstate that Noco can be less than great. I'm not too optimistic that the lowest price ones will do this properly, so I'm looking at the ~$125 max price, which would get me into a Victron BPC121545102, which is called a 'smart' charger.

This is for a cranking battery for my Mercruiser 120, so nothing exotic- I would also use it for the battery in my riding lawnmower and battery-powered sump pump, if I decide to add that.

Whaddaya think?
 
Look at Guest, ProMariner, Schumacher, or Victron, can get them for under $50, even Attwood would be ok
You want one that has a 3 stage charging profile, but being a maintaining charger as to a actual charger (under 3 amps) it's less critical

I've have a few 2 amp Guest maintainer/Trickle type chargers that have been good thru the winter. I measure voltages a few times during winter months to check. Don't see my type anymore on the web

Being this is a layup charger (not used in the boat during season), I would even look at Dewalt.
Dewalt charger
 
I pull the battery out of the boat, charge it then put it in the heated crawl space. Every couple of months I’ll throw a charger on it to top it up. I have a “smart charger” that will maintain the battery but I don’t use the charger since it’s maintaining out of sight, what can go wrong will go wrong. It’s a Mastercraft charger, basically a no name charger made in China for Canadian Tire.

Biggest thing for a battery is to protect it from freezing, I’ve doubled my boat battery life by protecting it from freezing.
 
William01 said:
I pull the battery out of the boat, charge it then put it in the heated crawl space. Every couple of months I’ll throw a charger on it to top it up. I have a “smart charger” that will maintain the battery but I don’t use the charger since it’s maintaining out of sight, what can go wrong will go wrong. It’s a Mastercraft charger, basically a no name charger made in China for Canadian Tire.

Biggest thing for a battery is to protect it from freezing, I’ve doubled my boat battery life by protecting it from freezing.
Click to expand...
I have a full basement and the lawnmower battery is already there- I haven't winterized the boat because I ran out of warm days, so it's sitting in the garage, which I heat when needed. So far, it hasn't dropped below 34°F and I have done some work on the boat in the last week- found a couple of loose connections on gauges and wanted to run it before we got dumped on Sat/Sun. Once the street is clear, I'll move it, run it and drain before drawing the antifreeze in, which should be much better than before because I removed the Y valve, which restricted the flow too much for my liking. Now, with the new/larger valve, the water shoots out 3' just from gravity with the bucket about 3-1/2' above the ground.

Best thing- the new parts were cheap.
 
If you just want a maintenance device, go with something like a Guest/Marinco 2701A

If you want the whoel ball of wax, a Marinco 28106 will do fine, for one battery...
 
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