[Anonymous]

My 34 has a battery charger under the chart table. There is no on/off switch.

I want to leave shore power on permanently through the winter so that I can run a dehumidifier and heater on timers.

I am concerned that if the shore power is on 24 hours a day that the batteries will ‘boil’ / get overcharged.

Does anybody know:

1. Is the charger ‘smart’ i.e. recognise and turn off when the battery is fully charged.

2. If I leave the shore power on but turn the 12 volt battery switch off, does this isolate the batteries? Could this damage the charger?

3. What would happen if I disconnect the the battery cables to bring the batteries home? I imagine that I would have 2 ‘live’ cables in the locker which sounds just a bit dangerous!!!

How strange that I can’t just flick a switch to turn the charger off!!

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

The easiest solution is to buy or make a connector from your shore power lead to a standard 3 pin socket so you can bypass the boat socket completely i.e. route the shore power lead directly to the dehumidifier and heater.

This has the added advantage of keeping the mains completely isolated from the boat, removing the possibility of electrolytic corrosion that can result from incorrect earthing, either on your boat or adjacent boats.

If you don’t want to do it that way, I suspect that your battery charger will be ‘smart’ and hence won’t boil your batteries (but can’t guarantee it!).

Regarding your second question, if you turn off the battery switch, I suspect that battery charger may still be connected. They are often wired that way so the boat electrics can all be turned off but still leave the battery charger connected.

Hope this helps

Roger

[Anonymous]

Thanks Roger.

I like the first suggestion and will go with it 😀

Still confused that I can’t find an on/off swith tho’ 🙁

Regards

Steve

[Author]

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