on board battery charger

smaples

Seaman
Joined
Oct 18, 2010
Messages
53
I have a minn kota onboard battery charger. I don't know which model it is. It is a 3 battery charger rated at 30 amps total with 10 amps per connection. When checking the voltage output its at 13.2 volts. Is this normal? It seems low to me. I was checking this toward the end of the charging cycle. Now I am wondering if the charger change its voltage output as it goes through its charging process. This all started from having a battery that seemed to be weak. So, I took the battery out and put it on a different charger. Its voltage output was over 15 volts. It took about 2 hours to fully charge the battery. The inboard charger indicated that the battery was fully charged.
 

iEnforcer

Cadet
Joined
Apr 24, 2012
Messages
10
Re: on board battery charger

13.2v is fine, but 15v is high.
Were you reading the voltage from an multimeter or from the dispay on the charger ?
Some chargers are not know to have a accurate voltage meter.
 

dwparker99

Petty Officer 3rd Class
Joined
May 9, 2010
Messages
98
Re: on board battery charger

I would not suspect the onboard charger being bad just because the portable charger took 2 hours to run its charge cycle. Many chargers, including the Shumacher Ship-N-Shore, run an equalization charge (15-16.5v for .5-4 hours) at the end of the normal charge cycle. With the last Ship-N-Shore charger I had, you could charge overnight, unplug for a couple of minutes, and when plugged back in it would show 100% charged but still keep the voltage at 15-16.5v for 30-45 minutes.
 
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