True Charge

[BonesD]

Howdy,
I recently installed a 12 volt device and hooked it to my house batteries. I left it on and it ran the house battery bank down.
My questions are I have a Statpower 10 amp Truecharge multi stage battery charger. Shown in picture.
I have pretty much ignored it’s existence the last year that I have owned the boat so I don’t really know if it ever worked or not. I use the house battery to start the gen once a month and that’s about it.
I jumped the house batteries and cranked the gen up and it is putting out voltage and charging the house battteries but there does not seem to be any charging going on from the charger when left to itself. I don’t have the paperwork (po).
I don’t know if there are fuses in the unit it or where to start.
Anyone have some direction or experience with this unit?
The status light in the front of the unit is lit up with “Absorption (1-8A) with a light next to it. I’m colorblind but am guessing it to be green?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Sorry the pictures are 90 degrees off. Why does that always happen?
Thanks.

 

[koliver]

Howdy,
I recently installed a 12 volt device and hooked it to my house batteries. I left it on and it ran the house battery bank down.
My questions are I have a Statpower 10 amp Truecharge multi stage battery charger. Shown in picture.
I have pretty much ignored it’s existence the last year that I have owned the boat so I don’t really know if it ever worked or not. I use the house battery to start the gen once a month and that’s about it.
I jumped the house batteries and cranked the gen up and it is putting out voltage and charging the house battteries but there does not seem to be any charging going on from the charger when left to itself. I don’t have the paperwork (po).
I don’t know if there are fuses in the unit it or where to start.
Anyone have some direction or experience with this unit?
The status light in the front of the unit is lit up with “Absorption (1-8A) with a light next to it. I’m colorblind but am guessing it to be green?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Sorry the pictures are 90 degrees off. Why does that always happen?
Thanks.

How big is your house battery bank? Your boat is a 43' Schucker? I would guess that, for the normal loads on any 43' boat, you will have at least 4 GC 220 amp hour batteries, arranged in series/parallel to give you 12v and 440 amp hours. If you, under normal use, deplete your batteries to 50%, you will need to put back 220 amp hours of juice. Your 10 amp supply will take (not including any efficiency losses) 22 hours to do that. Much longer time will be required if the output is between 1 ands 8 amps, as it seems to be telling you.

My first expenditure in your case would be going to at least a 100 amp charger. Yours may be working as hard as it can, with the green light telling you accurately that it is working, but just never getting there due to its tiny size.

 

[hmason]

Your charger appears to be working. It begins charging with a light at Bulk, then Absorption, and lastly Float. Moving from Absorption stage to Float stage can take quite awhile. Be patient and be sure the batteries have water if they are flooded lead acid.

 

[Comodave]

Agree that 10 amp charger on a 40’+ boat seems really small. We have a 60 amp just for our house bank, a 15 amp just for the start batteries and a 15 amp just for the thruster battery. I would recommend getting a certified marine electrician to look over your whole electrical system and make recommendations. Good luck.

 

[BonesD]

Thanks for the feedback all. Good to hear the charger is trying. Boat is just under 40’ without bow spirit and davits with very marginal demands. Only two main starting and two house batteries in series. I’m just a oneman show so not too many frills.
I checked the battery voltage yesterday after discovering the issue and they only showed 5 1/2 volts and this morning I got a bit over 11 volts so your info about a very slow return makes sense. It was a very shallow 11 volts as it still wouldnt even engage the starter solenoid on the generator. I will keep an eye on them and try to learn more as I go. I imagine I can find instruction manuals on the web.
Thanks a bunch.
Bones

 

[Comodave]

Thanks for the feedback all. Good to hear the charger is trying. Boat is just under 40’ without bow spirit and davits with very marginal demands. Only two main starting and two house batteries in series. I’m just a oneman show so not too many frills.
I checked the battery voltage yesterday after discovering the issue and they only showed 5 1/2 volts and this morning I got a bit over 11 volts so your info about a very slow return makes sense. It was a very shallow 11 volts as it still wouldnt even engage the starter solenoid on the generator. I will keep an eye on them and try to learn more as I go. I imagine I can find instruction manuals on the web.
Thanks a bunch.
Bones

If the voltage is that low the batteries may be shot. At 12 volts the batteries are just about dead. I have never seen one at 5.5 volts. If they were that deeply discharged very often they probably have been damaged and may never come back to a usable supply. Again it would be worth an hour or two of a certified marine electrician to evaluate the whole system and make recommendations as to how to proceed. We can make guesses, even educated guesses, here but unless you can actually see the configuration and how things are wired it isn’t the same.

 

[Bacchus]

Thanks for the feedback all. Good to hear the charger is trying. Boat is just under 40’ without bow spirit and davits with very marginal demands. Only two main starting and two house batteries in series. I’m just a oneman show so not too many frills.
I checked the battery voltage yesterday after discovering the issue and they only showed 5 1/2 volts and this morning I got a bit over 11 volts so your info about a very slow return makes sense. It was a very shallow 11 volts as it still wouldnt even engage the starter solenoid on the generator. I will keep an eye on them and try to learn more as I go. I imagine I can find instruction manuals on the web.
Thanks a bunch.
Bones

If the AM check was while charging or shortly after disconnecting charger the 11V may me erroneous & misleading. Battys need to rest for hours after charging to get a true V reading. One way to tell is if the V is slowly decreasing w no load it is settling to its true V. If / when it stabilizes thats a better indicator of what the charge has accomplished.
As Dave said the extremely low state of charge these have seem, especially if allowed to remain low for extended time, may have killed them.

 

[FF]

Drawn down to 5v even quality deep cycle batts might recover only a portion of there previous ability.

You might consider charging only one batt over night , to see if it can be brought up to about 14+v while on the charger.

Your 10a charger is fine for storing a boat in a slip , where little operates , but a larger charger should be installed to cruise , or a second alt belt mounted to your noisemaker with a 3 or 4 stage V regulator installed.

 

[BonesD]

It’s been 3 or 4 days since discovering my house battery issue.
1st As Howard indicated the charger would eventually display Float which it does this morning.
Unfortunately the two house batteries which are 6 volt by the way, are still only showing 11something volts and the generator is reluctant to turn over but it does crank and start but I don’t think it would crank long. I think the 11 volts I’m seeing is what we used to call a surface charge.
Anyway, after looking at the system a bit harder I see that the main starting batteries has a pair coming straight out of the charger to the pair of 12 volt batteries.
The house batteries have no visible charging circuit leading to them. The main cables go directly to the generator starter and ground.
I need to look further and see where if at all the charger is looped in to the house batteries

 

[C lectric]

You should be be to go online and get a manual from the mfgr. They often make those available.

I agree that the charger is likely working but is so small it will take many hours to gain on the batteries. This is assuming there are NO loads of any kind operating. If any loads are turned on the charger may be to small to do much good at all.

 

[BonesD]

After a bit more investigating, nothing else on the boat is connected to the house/generator starting battery with the exception of the single side band and the 12 volts I recently added that supplied my new autopilot.
Had I know the generator batteries were not getting any type of charge unless the generator was running I would not have selected this as a power source.
That’s easily remedied.
I also find that the big 12 volt 4 way switch. Off, batt 1, batt 2, or both is pretty much an on off switch the way things are wired. I thought it was controlling the main and the house batteries but no.
It appears that even though the cabling to the switch from the main batteries is present, that the function of the switch has been circumvented as the two main batteries are hooked together in parallel at the batteries themselves instead of allowing the switch to make the choice. At least that’s what I think the switch should do allowing me to toggle from one or the other or both. Am I correct in thinking that the two batteries (main)should be stand alone until connected through the switch.
Anyway, I will borrow a regular battery charger and see if generator batteries are salvageable or not. And it seems a better onboard battery charger with two separate outputs for shore hookup would be beneficial as well.
And I have learned much about my electrical system in this process. Thank you

 

[Comodave]

Remember that if you replace the charger with a larger one the cabling may well need upgrading too. And there should be a fuse in each charging cable that will handle the full output of the charger on each charging leg.

 

[BonesD]

Thank you for the direction.
Bones

 

[C lectric]

Those fuses should be as close to the batteries they are charging as possible, ideally within 7" of the batteries.
Each lead should be sized to be able to handle the full current load of the charger.

I won't rewrite everything but suggest you read the following thread:

https://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s4/inline-battery-fuse-holder-57524.html#post999920


It covers a lot.

 

[BonesD]

T[/QUOTE

Thanks for the link!

 

[BonesD]

I’m surprised that no one questioned me about the voltage reading of 5.9 I was getting while checking the dead batteries. I was only checking one of the two 6 volt cells. And then checking in a different spot to get the 11 plus readings.
My bad for assuming they were two 12 volt batteries. So the question of the batteries being depleted so far they might not recover is semi moot.
Anyway, they are Interstate 850284 6 volt golf cart batteries.
I put a standard 2 amp charge on them and they only max out at 5.9 volts each singularly or 11.9 together. .
I Have never worked with 6 volt batteries but im guessing that a healthy 6 volt battery fully charged will show 6.3 or so?
So, do I replace these batteries, I’m leaning hard yes but my wallet is saying slow down partner, let’s ask the forum.
Dates on the battery only indicate 2019. They have had little use besides monthly generator startup. I guess that could be a detriment.

 

[Comodave]

Usually when replacing a dead battery in a bank it is recommended to replace all the batteries in the bank at the same time. Now, I don’t know how badly the bank will perform if you only replace the 2 suspect batteries and leave the rest of them in the bank.