Battery Charging

[8point1]

Hey guys, so I'm re-wiring the 12v system on my San Juan 24. I bought a nice Optima deep cycle battery and I'm wondering what I should do for maintaining the charge.

I am looking at just buying a battery maintainer/charger. The boat came with a shore power cord with a regular 120V socket at the end. Right now I have a small space heater running off it. Should I just run the charger to this cable? Or should I start looking into adding actual shorepower. I don't need to run anything other than the battery charger and maybe a heater in the winter.

Also, my outboard has a charging package on it... not sure if that helps.

What do you guys think?

 

[seabob4]

Re: Battery Charging

A good ProMariner or Guest single bank 10A will do you just fine. There will be others who will come along and stress that you need 2 batts, one starting for the motor, the other a deep cycle for house loads, redundency, etc.

But your Optima will do fine for starting loads. Don't bother adding shorepower, just get a batt charger inlet, then plug in your extension cord.

There will be more to come later...

 

[8point1]

Re: Battery Charging

Awesome, thanks.

I hear ya about the dual batteries. A battery dedicated for starting would be pretty much pointless for me since my outboard is a rope start.

 

[seabob4]

Re: Battery Charging

Awesome, thanks.

I hear ya about the dual batteries. A battery dedicated for starting would be pretty much pointless for me since my outboard is a rope start.

I LOVE it!