Battery Charger Recommendation Needed

[Ken Krawford]

My charger has finally bit the dust.  I need a charger for 3 banks of golf cart batteries.  We use the boat solely for weekends - no extended cruising.
All recommendations are appreciated.

[shekinahsailor]

Ken, I fought issues for awhile of not knowing if my refrigerator, batteries or charger were inadequate and finally replaced my existing set up with 6 Trojan golf cart batteries on one bank, a separate group 27 starting battery and a  Xantrex TrueCharge 20+ charger driving it all.  I've seen several poor reviews on this unit, but for my situation (long weekends w/ refrigeration) it's been Great.

[BillR]

Ken,  I also installed a TruCharge, however, I installed a TruCharge 40+ which services 3 banks very nicely.  I have two (2) banks of 6V batteries and a third starting battery for the engine.  You might also consider a battery bank monitor such as the Xantrex (or others.

Bill Russell
1989 C34

[karista]

Ken
I also have the statpower (xantrex)20amp unit, however I am on the third unit in three years, the quality is not there. They are China made imports. I would suggest you do some research before you buy. The Xantrex is high priced and based on my experience not of high quality. I am on the third unit due to warranty replacements.
B. Mueller

[Stu Jackson]

Battery Chargers

Ken

Try this:

http://c34.infopop.cc/6/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=329609511&f=829605811&m=517601911&r=137601911#137601911

Stu

[Ted Pounds]

B.

I'm surprised you're having so much trouble with your Xanrex.  That's the first bad news I've heard about them.  I've had no trouble with mine and Practical Sailor gave them a top rating.  Since you're on your third unit, I wonder if something external to the charger is causing the failures.  Just a thought...

Ted

[jentine]

I can't understand why anyone has any charger other than solar panels (unless you live on the dark side of the moon).  A good solar panel will last longer than the boat.  I have been using solar panels to charge four 6v, house bank for many years without a single failure.  My batteries charge all week with the refrigeration running (also on solar) here in New England with no difficulties.  The cost of a couple of solar panels and a controller is less than a good quality battery charger.
Jim Kane

[Stu Jackson]

Solar

Jim

I agree in most aspects.  We leave our boat unplugged almost all the time even in our own slip.  I have a medium size UniSolar 11 watt panel that more than keeps up with the self discharge on our (3) 105 ah wet cell house bank, with a battery combiner to the separate start battery.  I don't run the fridge all the time (see my separate posts on that issue).

Only reason for a battery charger is if you have smaller panels, and/or morning (and sometimes all day) fog (like here in San Francisco)!

When we do plug in is when we're visiting other marinas (rare, we like to anchor out more), we're plugged in to get hot water in the morning, so top up the batteries while we're at it.  We have a combination inverter charger, which we bought more for the inverter part than the charger part.  We've been out on the hook for four days without having the run the engine to charge, with the fridge running all day (we turn it off at night and keep it covered, seems to work just fine).

I'm still unclear on the concept of why anyone (i.e., most people) would want to keep their boats plugged in all the time when they're not there, what with stray currents, electrical things that go bonk in the night, etc.

How big are your panels and where did you mount them?  Regulator?

Stu

[karista]

Ted
The practical sailor repoted on the charging charactertics not the reliability aspects of the charger. It depends also how much the charger is used. In my case the charger is on all the time the boat is in its dock as I keep the refrigeration on. I believe it is not robust enough to buffer the ongoing thunderstorm activities that we have here in St. Petersburg,FL, thus the frequent failures. Note the poor rating it gets on WestMarine's consumer rating page on their website. Also the EMI is strong enough to totally block AM reception.
I have a 120 watt solar panel installed and even in the florida sun it is unable to keep up with the refrigeration on all the time.
B. Mueller

[jentine]

I have a 120 watt solar panel mounted atop the dodger and another on the davits.  I also have a seperate Unisolar (22) on the deck just forward of the dodger with a seperate regulator for the starting battery.  The 2 - 120w Kyoceria panels run to a 35a regulator mounted in the cabinet above the starboard settee.
I leave the refrigerator running to apply a sink for the power being generated.  I don't think that the power should be dissipated as heat in the cabinet.  It can be put to better use heating the bilge (for no useful reason) via the refrigeration unit.  I don't keep the 'fridge on a high setting.  Just enough to keep a load on the system.
Ted, the only time I have had problem was after a week of rain.  I returned to the boat to find that the batteries were at 75% charge (solar panels work on cloudy days).  Upon leaving the boat that Sunday evening, I shut the refriger-ation down and the batteries were fully charged the following Friday.

Jim Kane

[captran]

we also replaced the stock charger when it died with the true charge 40.  The fan on the true charge 40 cycles on and off which can be alittle annoying but since we usually pull into a marina once every 5 days during a 9 week cruise it brings the batteries up quickly, which is why I got the 40 over the 20.  They are the same size, but the 20 does not have a fan.  By adding a small piece of wood here and there we kept it in the same location as the original.  Very happy with it.  We have the smallish unisolar panel (11 watt).  should have a rigid panel for better self sufficiency but a little extra marina time keeps the crew happy (the air conditioning is sooooo nice in the heat), although this last summer we did the Exumas and for 6 weeks the wind blew so hard we didn't think about air, or fans, and it was almost cool below, and so only stayed at 2 marinas in the Exumas.  We do keep the fridge on 24/7 which puts more drain on the 2 4D batteries.  I hate to change things and am not sure about the golfcart batteries.  I know they would be better for my purposes, but that would require a change in the wiring which I am not too sure about, and when I get down to the boat I just like to go rather than spend time at the dock trying to figure out how to make the needed changes.  (now if I were closer than 3000 miles from the boat during the off season, I'd be able to tinker alittle more.