Mini Kota MK220D on board charging unit questions?

[duckman06]

I have recently purchased a 3 year old war eagle boat with Mini Kota 70lb trust trolling motor with the MK220D on board battery charging unit.

When I hooked it up to power green light comes on and on battery 1 shows yellow light on indicating its charging the battery 1 but red light is lit up on battery 2?

Could this be do the batteries not have been charged in a while? Does battery 1 need to fully charge before battery 2 will charge? The setup is (2) batteries under front deck wired in 24 volt series.

This on board charger is new to me and the batteries are newer. I don't know I need to let it charge for a while allowing battery 1 to fully charge then battery 2 will charge and red light goes off? I did check the connections on both batteries which appers to be good. Also I checked the fuses and they seem to be find but it was late at night so I might not have seen the little bar was broke on one of the fuses?

Any help would be great as stated above this is all new to me and want to correct the problem if there is one?

 

[Barnacle_Bill]

Double check the fuses with an ohm meter. It could be a bad battery. Try swapping the leads. 1) A [FONT=Arial,Arial][FONT=Arial,Arial]RED [/FONT][/FONT]light for each bank is lit if any of the following apply:
a) No battery is connected to an output cord. This may also indicate a blown fuse in the fuse holder.
b) The battery is connected reverse polarity.
c) A short circuit.
d) The battery voltage is below 4 volts. The bank will not charge a battery in this condition. (see note below)
e) The battery voltage is above 18 volts. The bank will not charge a battery in this condition.

 

[gm280]

duckman06, I'm assuming you have the dual battery configuration model. Did you run separate positive and negative (red/black) charging wires to each battery? And you still have the series jumper wire in place per owners manual? If those answers are yes, then swap the two battery wires so that you'll be reversing battery one for battery two and see if the problem follows the changed wiring. If so, you could have a bad charger. If not then you need to verify the second battery is good... It should act like two separate chargers in that setup and therefore battery one shouldn't care about battery two and visa versa. Think of it like you have two completely separate chargers and one isn't working... The actual jumper wire to but them in series really doesn't even come into play while charging, according to the owners manual!

 

[duckman06]

Thanks gentlemen for the help. I went ahead and pulled the second battery. it was a little lower on water so I filled it up and stuck regular battery charger on it for about 10 mins. then reinstalled and now both lights are blinking yellow showing the batiers are charging. How long should it take for them to do so If they have not been charged in a while?

 

[gm280]

WOW that is a subjective question. If your dual charger is pumping max amps to each, It shouldn't take very long to recoup their capacities. Certainly over night I would assume... The problem with predicting that is not knowing the condition of each battery, or their capacities', or how much current is flowing in each charger circuit. So no real time can't really be predicted with any serious accuracy. Just be patience and see what it takes in time, and then you'll have a better idea the next time... Glad to hear you found your problem with the second battery too...

 

[duckman06]

Yes after reading your post that makes sense. I only had it plugged up for about three hours. Sounds like I need to just let it charge longer. Do this on board chargers have a auto shut off when they are charged?

Just don't want to leave it plugged up all night and hurt something? Thanks for the help.

 

[Barnacle_Bill]

They don't shut off, they go into a maintenance mode so you don't even have to unplug it until you are ready to go out again.

 

[duckman06]

They don't shut off, they go into a maintenance mode so you don't even have to unplug it until you are ready to go out again.

Ok well that's neat.