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hello everyone

jeff cote here with another installment

of boatingtechtalk.com

we're shooting on location in vancouver

british columbia in our little studio

and we've got a question from a fellow

boater

manny asks jeff my charger can supply

three battery banks

can i connect all three outputs from the

charger to one battery

good question depends really depends

some battery chargers have multiple

outputs

and they'll able to actually give max

output on all three legs

right so each battery bank if there's

only one pulling

then you could have only one battery

bank connected to the charger

and let's say for example it's a 40 amp

charger you could have 40 amps going on

like one

now you can't have 40 amps going like

one like two like three because that

would be a 120 amp charger

so if coincidentally all three battery

banks were equally depleted

you might have sort of an even

distribution of you know maybe 13 13 13.

now that's not all the case some battery

chargers will have

the main output could be let's say 100

amps and output 2 and 3 is maybe only 10

amps 10 amps each

so again you could have 100 amps on the

primary output and the secondary and the

third output are

maybe 10 amps or something like that

okay that's another option

third option some battery chargers

will output literally 10 amps 10 amps 10

amps so each leg

is maxed out at 10 amps and if you want

to have with that type of charger if you

want to have 30 amps on one battery

you literally have to connect all three

leads

via three fuse holders that to one

single battery

so unfortunately because with this

question i don't know the type of

battery charger that's connected

but yes you could connect all three

leads from one battery charger to the

battery

but you may not need to because most

battery chargers like the large majority

i'm talking like 95

of battery chargers can give you the max

amperage out

on one lead only so you don't actually

have to connect all three leads

we're doing that today for example we

were on a boat putting in a master volt

24

volt 100 amp charger yes 100 amps at 24

volts

that's 200 amp at 12. and on that boat

we're just simply connecting

one lead to that charger and where the

other two outputs are not going to be

used because we don't need them

so yes definitely possible but you might

not have to do that so that's a good

question manny oh and remember if you're

going to connect the battery charger to

your batteries

pop quiz where should you install the

fuse

should you install the fuse at the

battery charger

or should you install the fuse at the

battery

um pickle right most of the times

unfortunately

people install the fuse at the battery

charger but a battery charger will never

output more than its rated output

things don't fail for better they fail

for worse

40 amp charger will never output 80 amps

a 80 amp alternator will never output

more than 80 amps

your battery on the other hand can most

batteries

thousand coal cranking amps fifth 1300

and that's just a small little battery

you got a big battery bank you could

thousands of amps

that's what you worry about so the fuse

has to go where where there's pretty

much not unlimited but

feels like unlimited power and you want

to put that fuse

at the battery and where the battery

switched or unswitched

always unswitched meaning that when you

disconnect that battery switch

from your loads to your battery your

charger is still connected

where at the battery otherwise you're

gonna have a lot of magic on your boat

and you're gonna have one of these

mysterious boats that even with the

battery switch off

even with no battery on boat your panel

is illuminated

and you can run loads and in that case

you're actually

running loads off of your battery

charger and is that bad

absolutely so that's a great question a

lot of tidbits of information in this

one

it's really really good thanks for

asking

thank you for watching this pys video if

you've got further questions please

ask them below or send us an email via

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thanks again for watching

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