Onboard hardwired battery charger
- Thread starter SIBERNUT
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tiltrider1
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What is the battery bank made of?
Comodave
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I like Promariner. Great support.
STB
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Mine has treated me well.
Comodave
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Yes, when we bought our current boat I added bow and stern thrusters. They are 24 volt so I needed 2 24 volt chargers. The Promariners were back ordered. So I went with Mastervolt, what a mistake. Really difficult to read documentation and less than stellar support. Wish I had waited for the Promariners…
DBG8492
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I bought a NOCO Genius unit for our old sailboat - I didn't like it. It was constantly shutting off for reasons I couldn't figure out. May have been user error, but their support was no help in figuring it out either.
Swapped it for a Victron IP67. Never had any problems after that. Plus, the Bluetooth monitoring feature is nice. It isn't multi-bank, and it isn't hardwired, but they have other units that are.
O C Diver
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I've had great success withe Dual Pro. Single, double, and triple battery chargers with several different amperages available. I like that they are sealed and waterproof. Have bought 6 over the 15 years, and they're all still working.
https://www.batterystuff.com/batter...s-12v-6-amp-waterproof-smart-charger-rs1.html
Ted
https://www.batterystuff.com/batter...s-12v-6-amp-waterproof-smart-charger-rs1.html
Ted
tiltrider1
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Carefully check the specs. Many battery chargers are limited to charging a single battery.
Comodave
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I would at least go with a 2 bank charger because you may someday add a second bank. The smart chargers today will realize there is only 1 bank and put all the charge there. If you add a second bank in the future the charger will split the charge according to how much each bank needs. Don’t forget to add a fuse or breaker at the output of the charger to protect the cables to the battery.
mvweebles
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I have a Victron IP22 three bank 30A charger. I bought it to balance charge my LiFePO4 batteries which worked well at 10A each. And I recently used it to charge a single AGM which it did at 30A. Bluetooth interface is very intuitive. About $230.
https://www.victronenergy.com/chargers/blue-smart-ip22-charger
Peter
Comodave
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Not much difference in price between a 2 and a 3 bank one. Then you have a lot of upgradability.
guy with a boat
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I’m with Peter in being fan of the Victron chargers. They aren’t much more money but you won’t have to buy it twice. Great interface, programability, and reliability. I’ve bought a few of these (Victron chargers, including this model) and have been happy with every one.
tiltrider1
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I am paranoid when it comes to my generator battery. It has its own dedicated charger that runs off the inverter. There are no other connections to my generator that could accidentally drain the battery.
If you have no charger hooked to your generator then I would certainly set it up as bank.
If you have no charger hooked to your generator then I would certainly set it up as bank.
mvweebles
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For me, my need for an additional battery charger is as backup only. I don't have room for a dedicated mounted battery charger.
Right now, I need a battery charger because my Renogy DC-DC charger had failed so nothing is charging my engine start and gen/thruster banks. Right now, I just used the alligator clips but for future use, I'll install a short pigtail permanently to the batteries (actually a bus bar), then just connect the battery charger when/if needed. See attached picture of hardwired pigtail
Peter
RickyD
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A couple years ago I bought a ProMariner 3 bank 20amp charger to charge two group 31 12v for my 24v bow thruster. It died in two years (it had a two year warranty). I sent it back and they sent me a new upgraded one. It lasted a year or so and died. They said the warranty applied to my original purchase. So I bought a Sterling. ProMariner and Stirling used to be the same company. The Stirling has a 5 year warranty. It has worked fine for the year I have had it. I also have a Victron Centaur 30 amp 3 bank charger that has been flawless and it charges three banks. I also have a Victron Multi-Plus 120 amp charger for my main house bank. I like Victron. Running good since 2018.
Mischief Managed
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I did. My boat only has three banks: starting, house, and gen start, and the boat was pre-wired for all three to meet at a 3 bank charger, so it was an easy decision.
Well , several things enter in here.
1) The boat will be at my own pier
2) with the work still to be done, I won't cruise this year
3) I have several auto type chargers, no need for ign protected
4) other things need $ more suddenly
Appreciate all the insight, if one comes available cheap I know what I want now . TKS ALL
1) The boat will be at my own pier
2) with the work still to be done, I won't cruise this year
3) I have several auto type chargers, no need for ign protected
4) other things need $ more suddenly
Appreciate all the insight, if one comes available cheap I know what I want now . TKS ALL
I debated about it and decided against it. Here's my thinking...
My other 3 battys are all 8D (AGMs) and my Gen is a Gp27 AGM
I felt it better to charge similar size battys / banks vs combining large & small (don't know if it a valud concern or not?)
My 3 bank charger serves 1 8D for each bank
Gen has its own alt to charge gen batty
I added a 1,2,all sw instead of on/off for gen (tied to house bank)to handle mergency and periodically top off gen batty... time on shore charger is thus under my control and only done periodically for limited time.
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ranger58sb
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Previous boat, with two big main battery banks and a much smaller genset battery, with a ProMariner 3-bank ProTech-1240 charger...
The builder connected all three banks. The charger instruction manual specifically dis-recommended (?) the situation where one battery (as for a generator) was much smaller than the other two. And sure enough, eventually I noticed some bubbling on the genset's AGM battery (which is what led me back to the manual's recommendation).
After that, I left the generator battery off the charger, just used the genset's alternator for charging. But I also added jumper cables to the boat stores.
That was an old charger, though, maybe not as versatile as more recent products.
Our current boat came with it's own dedicated charger for the genset battery. Don't have to use it much, given alternator charging.
-Chris
Chris
Thanks for the confirmation.
I do have a small batty maintainer aboard and use it sometimes to boost the gen batty when I haven't used it in sometime or in prep for winter lay up.
The 1-2-all switch was an EZ add as it is the same foot print / mtg bolt hole as the factory on-off and house switch close by to add a jumper.
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AndrewAdams
Veteran Member
Another vote for Victron, I have two aboard now and on next big cruise will likely have four of the 30A BlueSmart chargers. They can easily be ganged via bluetooth and I prefer the redundancy and reconfigurability of multiple smaller chargers instead of having one big one.
Simi 60
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Victron for us as well
Have the 120amp @ 24v in the multiplus doing house only
Have a Victron blue smart 12a 24v that is in position for starts (disconnected while playing with dc2dc chargers)
Have a Victron Skylla 50 amp @ 24v as a spare
And some ancient Yum Cha 4 amp charger on Genset start to give that a tickle up through lack of use, just flick the switch when passing.
Have the 120amp @ 24v in the multiplus doing house only
Have a Victron blue smart 12a 24v that is in position for starts (disconnected while playing with dc2dc chargers)
Have a Victron Skylla 50 amp @ 24v as a spare
And some ancient Yum Cha 4 amp charger on Genset start to give that a tickle up through lack of use, just flick the switch when passing.
Waterant
Senior Member
i had to upgrade my charger last year and did a lot of research to get the best price/performance/quality combination.
I went with this one:
https://amzn.to/3KVkCH3
There are different sizes; I've got 60A. It supports 3-bank charging and all kinds of battery types, including lithium.
I'm currently switching to lithium and just set it to charge the new lithium batteries with a simple push of a button to select a new profile.
I'm super happy with it and would get it again.
I went with this one:
https://amzn.to/3KVkCH3
There are different sizes; I've got 60A. It supports 3-bank charging and all kinds of battery types, including lithium.
I'm currently switching to lithium and just set it to charge the new lithium batteries with a simple push of a button to select a new profile.
I'm super happy with it and would get it again.
