Unattended Battery Charger

[tbodine88]

Hello

I've had my west wight potter for 12 years now. As soon as I got it I bought a solar battery charger and and a sunsaver-6 to keep the battery up.

I am stuck ashore, so the boat lies on the trailer or in the marina un-attended for days.

I have purchased some other electronics which take AA batteries. My practice is to power these with rechargeable batteries. In the house I keep a battery charger that is usually plugged in even when there are no batteries in it. The problem is when I go sailing I want the batteries where the boat is, because being absent minded I often find my self on the boat with out charged batteries. So I am contemplating placing a Ni-cad charger on the boat so these batteries can be kept fresh on the boat.

I was wondering if there are any out there who have successfully made this a practice. I know its easy to find horror stories where a fire was caused by a battery charger, but I am hoping to find that there is a large group out there who are doing this and having no such problem.

Thanks and happy sailing.

Tom Bodine

[noelex 77]

Get some Eneloop AA batterries they are very low self discharge and are still OK a year after charging.
It's not great to to leave a battery charger on.

[cal40john]

Your problem is why I use alkaline not rechargeable in my portable VHF.

John

[CarlF]

How about something like this just left on the cockpit seats when you are away? Don't have one myself but looks like a fine idea.

Amazon.com: Solar 11-in-1 Battery Charger: Electronics

[Cheechako]

Wow... that loks like a perfect solution!

[tbodine88]

Visible things tend to walk off at my marina

[Cheechako]

is there a window that gets hours of sun shining on your table/counter...? You're just trying to maintain good batteries while away right? When sailing you could have it outside...

[CarlF]

Steal a $25 charger? Can you leave fenders hanging?

I'm frankly amazed how little theft there is off boats (at least East Coast US/Canada and Bahamas). Most deck hatches are easy to open from outside as many (including me) don't remember or bother to set the locking nub that keeps the handle from turning on deck. The only boat theft I've had in thirty years was off a charter boat in the Caribbean.

Carl

[tbodine88]

Some one stole the knob off my tiller tender