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Posts: 52
| Just wondering if it is ok to leave the cranking batteries and trolling motor batteries in the boat over the winter. In the past I have always taken them out of the boat and put them in my basement over the winter. If you can leave them in the boat, how often do they have to be charged? |
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Posts: 373
Location: Maine Township, MN | Put them somewhere where they won't freeze. If you have a maintainer on them, no problem but once they start to discharge, they will freeze. |
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Posts: 2754
Location: Mauston, Wisconsin | If they are fully charged when you store the boat, leave them in, and do a top off charge every 3 months - they won't freeze. The only way you can freeze a battery is to discharge it completely! If you're worried about slow discharge in the boat, disconnect them.....by disconnecting one terminal on each battery.
Have fun!
Al
Edited by ESOX Maniac 10/25/2013 12:17 PM
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Posts: 5874
| You do more harm by taking them into a warm environment, where self-discharge will occur. A fully charged battery will not freeze. As Al mentioned, disconnect one terminal if you want to make sure there is no load to discharge them. DFI motors do have a slight load, and will discharge a battery over time. I always kept mine plugged in over winter. |
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Posts: 793
Location: North Central IL USA | Mine stay in the boat year round (northern IL) The boat's stored outdoors. I put the charger on about once a month during winter. No worries. Been doing it for years. |
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Posts: 253
Location: On the water | Last day of fishing, disconnect and charge them up, no problem leaving
them in the boat all winter in northern Illinois, they will be fine. |
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Posts: 1460
Location: Kronenwetter, WI | Regarding charger longevity, Is it best to leave the chargers on all winter or better to disconnect and charge every month or so? I'm thinking the chargers may live longer if they are not plugged in all winter. |
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Posts: 2754
Location: Mauston, Wisconsin | Based on my experience of over +30 years working with batteries as an engineer, I don't leave any battery charger connected to my boat batteries for over 24hrs. There is always a risk that the charger voltage regulator can fail. If that happens, other very bad things can happen, a charger failure can literally cook your battery or even create a fire! Now if the charger had remote monitoring for failures, I would consider it!
I don't really think it matters for storage.......your battery won't actually last longer. As was mentioned by Shep, warmer temperature's do increase the self discharge rate of a lead acid battery.
Have fun!
Al |
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Battery Storage