I have a Bass Pro Shop three bank charger on my boat. Do you leave your charger plugged in all the time or do you just charge your batteries and then unplug it? I did not want to burn up anything.

Mine is plugged in 24/7 to my Optimas. It should switch to a "maintain" mode after reaching full voltage.

I have the same charger hooked to both trolling motor batteries and cranking battery. I leave mine plugged in 24/7 as well and have had no problems so far, but I haven't let it sit for more than a few weeks without running the boat.

Thats what I do too...

Different approach - I have a Dual Pro 4-bank charger that is designed to shut off the charging current when the batteries are fully charged, BUT instead of leaving it on 24/7, I have it on a timer that completely shuts the charger down except for 2 hours per day. 2 hours is enough to maintain the batteries.

Why do I do this -- reduces the possibility of a catastrophic event should there be a charger failure! If you talk to Dual Pro, they will say that their chargers are designed to be left on 24/7, but I prefer to be somewhat on the safe side.

C.

I plug mine in once a week for about a full 24 hours

I installed a Minn Kota 315D last year & leave it plugged in 24/7. No problems so far. This smaller charger surprisingly tops the batteries off pretty quick after a hard day on the TM too.

I leave my Bass Pro 3 bank on 24\7 with no problems.

I leave mine plugged in all the time. My NorthStar Batteries are over 6 yrs old and still going strong

Is the minnkota 3 bank charger a good charger? It's quite a bit cheaper than the guest 3 bank.

Left plugged in once for several months I forget about it and was out of state it did boil the water out of two batteries and fried them but they were cheap batteries I now have odessey batteries in the boat I plug it in about once a week for about 24hrs that works great

Since the XPS charger is a trickle charger you shouldn't have a problem leaving it plugged in for a few weeks at a time. Like Fishmark said, it'll switch to maintain mode and keep the batteries at a constant full charge without burning out the battery.

I don't have anything bad to say about them so far. Bought it, installed it, run it whenever the boat's not in the water, ever since. One thing it seems to do well is monitor the temperature. My boat is outside all the time, either covered or uncovered so the thing gets plenty hot. The MK D series is supposed to compensate for the temps & not boil the batteries. Seems like it's doing just that. They also seem to do maintenance mode well, which will yo-yo the current so the batteries don't sulphate.

You can leave them on but I believe it's better not to. The timer idea works great but if it's in your garage it's easy enough to just plug it in every now and then. Also, leaving it on all the time will reduce it's lifespan -- they don't last forever.

Most products don't work like that nowadays. Leaving a recent electronics product in the ON position continuously typically maximizes the product's life. It it the power down/power up cycling (component temp swings)than most contributes significantly to the product's failure rate.

A timer can easily work against the life of the battery forcing a brief unneccessary ovecharge current into an already charged battery every time the timer re-starts up.

Except for a small cost of electricity increase, it is best to leave the recent 'float capable' chargers on 24/7.