Battery Maintainer

[jmo_54729]

Has anyone ever attempted to connect a battery maintainer to more than 1 battery. In other words,
I'd like to take 3 12-volt batteries, (all charged) and
connect them in parallel, then connect the battery maintainer to all three, so that I don't have to keep rotating through the batteries all winter, or buy 3 battery maintainers. Battery maintainers are the little "wall wort" power supplies that keep batteries charged up when you're not using them.

Anyone see a problem with doing this?

Jim

[lakes Rick]

I "think" I have seen maintainers designed to charge more than one battery at a time.......

[Psheehy]

You can hook them up in parallel to see. Nothing to loose. Measure the voltage across the battery terminals. Each battery should read close to 14 volts if it is indeed charging. The amps (rate of charge does not matter to you). The unit might get overloaded though carrying the load of 3 batteries & quit if the state of charge on any of the batteries requires the charger to work too hard. Paul Sheehy Douglas Battery Winston-Salem, NC

[PointTaken]

Originally Posted by jmo_54729

Has anyone ever attempted to connect a battery maintainer to more than 1 battery. In other words,
I'd like to take 3 12-volt batteries, (all charged) and
connect them in parallel, then connect the battery maintainer to all three, so that I don't have to keep rotating through the batteries all winter, or buy 3 battery maintainers. Battery maintainers are the little "wall wort" power supplies that keep batteries charged up when you're not using them.

Anyone see a problem with doing this?

Jim

3 batteries? What kind of system do you have in that boat? Feel free not to answer, as I may feel obligated to upgrade mine if it sounds good

[gregg]

Originally Posted by jmo_54729

Has anyone ever attempted to connect a battery maintainer to more than 1 battery. In other words,
I'd like to take 3 12-volt batteries, (all charged) and
connect them in parallel, then connect the battery maintainer to all three, so that I don't have to keep rotating through the batteries all winter, or buy 3 battery maintainers. Battery maintainers are the little "wall wort" power supplies that keep batteries charged up when you're not using them.

Anyone see a problem with doing this?

Jim

I have 2 batteries in parallel and have had no problems at all. I installed and hard wired a Guest 5x2 bank marine charger in my 2002 Maristar 210. 5x2 simply means it charges at 5 amps per bank(battery). A battery's biggest enemy is setting in a state of partial or complete discharge. After a day of running the stereo hard, when I get back to the shop I just pull the cord out and plug the charger in. Next morning both batteries are fully charged and ready to go. Also setting idle during the winter months, I plug it in every couple of weeks to keep the batteries fully charged, or you can leave it plugged in all the time. If you look in Bass Pro's Marine catalog they also have 3 bank chargers for your application. If you are using Marine batteries, make sure you get a marine charger, they are different that a normal starting battery charger.

If the same type you will probably not have any problems however if different types or sizes you could. Technically you should have some isolation for each battery. Depends if there is a different "holding voltage" in each battery.

You could do that by putting a 30-100 ohms several watt resistor from Radio SHack in line with positive lead to each battery.

Minn Kota makes a MK-35 3 bank battery maintainer. Mfr. # 1820350, Model # 2259909. Sells for around $100.00. This will maintain three batteries at the same time. You just have one unit that has connections to all three batteries. This is a lot better than having one unit for each battery. This unit comes in 6 or 12 volt.

[brucemac]

like leroy said not recommended, especially if they are different.

why don't you just pick up a second 2-bank battery tender? they're like $60 or so I think on amazon.

[Sodar]

Originally Posted by hillbw

Minn Kota makes a MK-35 3 bank battery maintainer. Mfr. # 1820350, Model # 2259909. Sells for around $100.00. This will maintain three batteries at the same time. You just have one unit that has connections to all three batteries. This is a lot better than having one unit for each battery. This unit comes in 6 or 12 volt.

Cool deal! Anything for a 2-bank?

[Sodar]

Originally Posted by brucemac

like leroy said not recommended, especially if they are different.

why don't you just pick up a second 2-bank battery tender? they're like $60 or so I think on amazon.

Naw, it would be better to have one unit that you could mount that was connected to all the batts. Just pull in the garage and plug an extension cord in... next time you took off, the batts would be ready for action!