www.iFourWinns.com

Made some mistakes and caused me to kill one battery. So I brought her home to plug into shore power, no problem...but how do I know that its charging? I have the optional battery charger, I have power to the circuit breaker (Green light is on),
I have flipped the charger breaker on...is it charging both (or in my case all three) batteries?
Do I need to set my battery switch to something (1, 2 or both?) right now it's off.
Went through manual it doesn't say.

TIA,

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Chris and Alicia
Las Vegas, NV
ALTIVA
1996 Four Winns 238 Vista Dlx 5.8Fi

My 278 charges when the boat's main power switch is off.

To check if your charger is working put a multimeter (switched to DC volts) probes across the terminals of a battery. Turn shorepower on and off. If the battery charger is on and working you should get 13+ volts from the battery assuming it is not completly dead, if the charger is off or broken a fully charged battery should show 12+ volts (depending on type).

After that it gets a bit complicated. I installed a second voltmeter on the dash to show the state of the auxillary battery. It registers higher when the shorepower and charger are on. Under some circumstances the positive terminals of your batteries may be linked by a VSR or other device so both batteries may show the same voltage, but again you should get a higher reading if charging is taking place.

Assuming your boat was supplied from the factory with 2 batteries, the charger probably has two charging outlets, one for each battery. Your third battery may be hooked up in parallel to the auxillary battery therefore 2 and 3 would charge together. The only way to understand this is to follow the wires in the battery and main switch area and make a wiring digarm. There may have been modifications since the boat was built.

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John
2006 Four Winns Vista 278 (sold)

Someone with the same model may be more specific but this is one way that a 2 or 3 battery setup my be configured.



Note that a battery charger with two outlets is always connected regardless of the switch position.

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John
2006 Four Winns Vista 278 (sold)

That's what I was hoping to hear, always connected. Been connected to "shore"power most of night, got power it seems.

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Chris and Alicia
Las Vegas, NV
ALTIVA
1996 Four Winns 238 Vista Dlx 5.8Fi

Most charges are connected directly to the batteries. You did mention 3 batteries, each one should have its own charger or bank. The output of the charger should be around 14.2 to 14.6 volts. You should look it up the manual for the charger to br sure. I would have a 2nd battery switch so you don't leave them in connected when there not in use. Because if one battery is failing, it will make the good battery discharge into the bad one.

Two battery combiners can be added to keep all 3 charged up know matter how the switches are set.