I purchased this NOCO Dual Charger to leave on the boat once it's shrink wrapped.
NOCO Genius Dual Charger
It has some really excellent features:
I asked their customer support prior to purchase, whether their would be a problem with battery drain, if it was connected to the batteries but the AC power was disconnected: the answer was it is negligible and their chargers are designed to be mounted on-board if required and simply re-connected on return to shore.Designed to be dual purpose - both indoors and outdoors - providing weatherproof and waterproof protection from the outside elements during any time of the year, including winter. Its X-Connect battery connectors - better than SAE - allow for quick-connect permanent connection or connecting directly to the battery terminals
But when I was hooking it up I realized another potential issue - After plugging it in, I had to select which battery mode to use (there are 4 possible modes for battery type/voltage); so I thought, wait, what happens if there is a power failure and I can't access it under the shrink wrap ...... Is it just going to sit there waiting for the mode to be selected again?
Again, NOCO customer support was impressively quick to respond to my question and informed that the charger has a 'last mode' memory, so when Power is restored it will immediately come on at the previous setting.
The only 'Nits' I would suggest are the supplied accessory cables (which themselves are really good quality with very nice sealed connectors!) - they don't use SAE type pigtails - adapters are available separately (but they are not inexpensive!); you can remove the Alligator clips to use the ring lug to attach - however here again, the holes are 6mm vs the 10mm required for my batteries. But I simply drilled these out and installed on the auxiliary studs where my SAE Pigtails had been. You can still leave these battery connections in situ, even if you remove the module and the extender cables, so that's a bonus too. So out of the box, they didn't fit, but only a relatively minor mod to accommodate.
The other 'Nit' is that the kit comes with 4 (!!!!) Power cables for different markets - extremely wasteful and pretty much landfill material for those other three
Overall, I think this is a really great charger and perfect for our application. So I would give it a healthy recommendation/endorsement.
Here it is in my engine Bay (that is a Twin Hornet 45 700W Bilge Heater next to it)