Hooking up a new battery maintenence charger?

[steelbiten]

I got one of those battery maintenence chargers for my boat and have a question about where to install it. Kind of an electrical question I guess. I want to put it under my dash board near the fuse panel, and hook it right in to the fuse panel. Is this a good or a bad Idea? :whazzup: If I can't hook it into the fuse panel I can run new wires all the way back to the battery, but this just seems so simple and easy to me. Are there any reasons not to do this?

Thanks everyone!

[Bluto]

I would locate it as close to the batteries as possible. Mine is hooked directly to the batteries & not into my fuse panel (It has an inline fuse). What do your instructions say about installation?

[steelbiten]

All the manual really says is don't shorten the power and ground wires because they have fuses at the end of them. The wires are about 4 or 5 feet long and about a 10 gauge. I'm sure my main panel wire is that big. There just isn't any room to put it near the battery, unless I mount it to the bottom of the gunnel.

[Boat Doc']

You should hook it directly to the battery. If you hook it anywhere else it may not have enough output to supply charging voltage to the battery because of the increased resistance.

[4 REEL]

Do you have one charger per battery or can you charge both with one unit?