Winter Battery Strategy

[Golfman25]

@Golfman25 Go up once a month and charge them up. Your boat will miss you and be glad to see you. Topics is going to be open a little more through the fall, so stop into your storage building, hook up an extension cprd to charge, head over to Tropics for a burger and a beer, head back over to storage and unplug. Just make sure you are out by 4 because they will lock it up on you. Please don't leave your boat plugged in overnight.

The new charger will help a lot, because your batteries shouldn't be dead going into the winter. For the first charge, you might have to give it a little longer but you can watch that ProMariner and see what it's doing.

Yeah. Got a bunch of projects, so I’ll be up pretty regularly. Going to go up and spend a day to do the install and full charge. I’m in Zion, so I usually hit up ace hardware, harbor brewing, and/or Jimmy Johns.

 

[wayne0]

Is it not possible to back-feed the 12v system through the cigarette lighter power on the dash to open the hatch? That is how my 97 330DA works.

All batteries are toped up with distilled water, then fully charged and disconnected over winter. I use this thing I built to back feed, clipping onto a battery on the bank under the cockpit seat. Someone has also said that plugging into shorepower can also power the hatch even if the batteries are disconnected, but I have not tried that.

This has worked for me for many years.

 

[Pirate Lady]

Indoors, battery switches off, battery charger breaker on (the only thing on) and plug in to 110 outlet when I'm there. I have a 30 amp to 110 pigtail.

Exact same here except the indoors part but I have to be careful, the winter storage contract says it’s against rules to plug in shore power. Even though I have a building with power 5 feet behind the boat.
The old bag that runs marina says $50 charge every time they have unplug the boat.
So about in 2 months I will go after they close, plug in, then go back early next morning and unplug before they open.

 

[sbw1]

I put our boats away with fully charged batteries in the fall and do nothing else. This has always worked without any issues. Boat stored inside heated and temps are consistently 50 degrees until early April when the boat is launched. All breakers are in the off positions including the masters for both engines.

 

[Pirate Lady]

I put our boats away with fully charged batteries in the fall and do nothing else. This has always work without any issues. Boat is stored inside heated and temps are consistently 50 degrees until early April when the boat is launched. All breakers are in the off positions including the masters for both engines.

Indoors is key. Last year I was outside way too far to reach power. Went to start April, it cranked slow, worried it wouldn’t fire when it was my launch day, in sling with boats lined up behind me. Finally it caught and fired. Don’t want to do that again. Need to top off at least thru mid winter.

 

[dvx216]

Just remember a fully charged Lead Acid battery is good down
to -80 degrees F

 

[Golfman25]

Unfortunately my charger crapped out just before haul out. So my batteries don’t have full charges. I am in the process of installing the new charger. What a PIA. Supposed to be 1-2 hours, and I’m going on two days. Old one is heavy as chit. Getting the wires out sucked. Took an hour to cut out the cable holders holding the wires in the unit. Everything hooked up and mounted, but extending the bonding wire is proving to be a challenge. There is no length to work with. I’m going to have to open up the wire run to see if I can free up enough length to butt splice it. So close, but yet so far.

 

[Soulshine]

Indoors is key. Last year I was outside way too far to reach power. Went to start April, it cranked slow, worried it wouldn’t fire when it was my launch day, in sling with boats lined up behind me. Finally it caught and fired. Don’t want to do that again. Need to top off at least thru mid winter.

I always pre start mine a few days before and then a few hours before launch.

When I'm in the straps, I know its going to start and it's already warmed up. I use the plunger thing, where you'd use muffs.

I hate surprises even more than watching someone else's.

 

[Bill Curtis]

Have used these computer controlled battery maintainers for 8 or 10 years now, Have 3 (garage, shed and boat) of them and they have never failed me. Perfect for maintaining batteries during winter and have not had a dead battery in the spring , since.

Last boat, batteries were 6 or 7 years old when I sold it. My one year tractor battery is going on 4 years old, now.

 

[1hot87gt]

Indoors, battery switches off, battery charger breaker on (the only thing on) and plug in to 110 outlet when I'm there. I have a 30 amp to 110 pigtail.

Ive been leaving the battery switches on and leaving only the ac converter (battery charger) breaker in the on position. Just bought a 2004 Sea Ray Dancer 300 and the previous owner told me to do that. So you are saying I can turn off battery switches completely and just make sure battery charger breaker is on, and be plugged into 110v of course, and thats all I will have to do to make sure my batteries stay charged?

 

[Lazy Daze]

Ive been leaving the battery switches on and leaving only the ac converter (battery charger) breaker in the on position. Just bought a 2004 Sea Ray Dancer 300 and the previous owner told me to do that. So you are saying I can turn off battery switches completely and just make sure battery charger breaker is on, and be plugged into 110v of course, and thats all I will have to do to make sure my batteries stay charged?

If it's still wired as it was from the factory (you should check with a voltmeter) then the battery switch has no impact on the charger.

 

[1hot87gt]

Yeah. It’s very factory. Guy was meticulous with everything on that boat, I can’t imagine anyone would have rewired it.

Ok. Great. Thanks for the reply. I’m gonna shut down those switches.