Carver Owners Forum

I have a bank of4 batteries and want to purchase a "4 bank" battery tender to keep the batt's charged during the winter. Each bank has a separate hook up so they are all independent. The question is if the batts are all connected to each other in the bilge, does that affect charging the batts with the tender?

So you have one bank that consists of 4 batteries.....so just consider those 4 batts as one big battery and go from there because that is what you have. You could separate them all and charge each one separate but really no need.....the assumption here is that they are 4x12 volt batteries. The bank in this case is the four batteries together. Just put the charger pos on one end of the bank and the neg on the other.

The same applies if they are 4x 6 volt...that would be 2x12 as the total bank would be in series parallel....clear as mud huh.

4 bank tenders are available. https://www.amazon.com/Battery-Tender-022-0148-DL-WH-12-Volt-Management/dp/B000CIPHUI

I might be missing something....why are you not simply using the boat's main charger? If it's a smart charger, it will do the same thing. Having said that, if you put the batteries to bed properly for the winter and they're in good shape, they should hold their charge until the Spring. Our winters get very cold up here and the common practice here is to ensure they're fully charged then disconnect for the winter and leave them on board. They discharge very little in the cold so if they're in good shape, they'll make it through the winter.

Midnightsun wrote:Source of the post 4 bank tenders are available. https://www.amazon.com/Battery-Tender-022-0148-DL-WH-12-Volt-Management/dp/B000CIPHUI

If this is a gasoline application, the unit needs to be ignition proof.

I have 6 of the deltran battery tenders. I use them for my lawn equipment, boats, jet skis and car batteries they are great little slow chargers. They will sometimes even bring "toasted" batteries back to life for a year or so. I pull my boat batteries and put them on the deltrans until I get a full "green" then reconnect them every other month.

As viper mentions, if you keep the batteries in the boat and have year round access to 120v, why not just power your regular charger?
If you pull them and take them home, just get one deltran single tender and do one battery at a time.

I believe I know where you are coming from since I have the same dilemma. Only power I can use to power the boat is 220v which enters the boat through a 220/125v 50a shore power connection and then goes to an isolation transformer and then exits as 2x 110v circuits that power the interior shore power breaker panel. Without 220v power available you cannot use the on board charger/s or anything else for that matter. Problem is I have never seen land storage facilities with 220v available for plug in none the less indoor storage that offers this either.

This is my fix although not yet installed but probably the first project I will tackle as soon as the mother nature ends winter.

A separate charger independent of the boats electrical system with a standard plug in that accepts a standard 110v power cord which is what I assume you have in mind also.

Charger https://no.co/gen4

Receptacle https://no.co/gcp1

Overkill? Maybe but like they say. "Do it right the first time or expect to do it again"

For this situation, I always remove my batteries, bring them home and charge each one once a month. Having said that, it is a pain but I get a huge piece of mind doing so.

In my case the batteries are a real pita to access and the same goes for putting them back. I do understand the peace of mind that goes with removing but accessing and hauling around 500lbs of batteries not once but twice is not on the list of my priorities.

Removing batteries for the winter is old school, and while old school isn't necessarily always a bad thing, in this case it's not necessary and can under the right conditions be worse than leaving them on board. Put them to bed properly for the winter and they'll be fine on board if they're in good condition. It's like most people still feeling the need to place batteries on wood because they've always heard you shouldn't keep them on concrete. Again, old school which is based on things that don't apply anymore and don't take certain things into consideration, but you don't know what you don't know.

Whatever let's you sleep at night I guess but technical reasons aside, I'm with Hans, it's just too much of a PITA to remove them anyway.