On-board battery charger question

[jeffunger]

Hi,

I have an older (6 or so years) Bass Pro Shops 5/5/5 on board charger. It has worked very well, but recently "lost" on of the trolling motor charging circuits.

Before I run out and buy a new one, I am wondering if it would work ok for me to switch the cranking battery circuit with the "bad" TM circuit and still work ok.

I am not overly concerned with not getting a full charge into the cranking battery. I am just not certain that this will work ok because the cranking battery wires are clearly marked, suggesting to me that there might be a problem of some kind hooking it up to one of the TM batteries.

If it makes any difference to the answer, I have two TM batteries wired to provide 24 volts.

Thanks in advance,

Jeff

 

[Lyle29464]

Re: On-board battery charger question

You would need to read the manual. It will tell what type of battery each bank will accommodate. The 24 V setup may not be compatible with the starting bank.

 

[HAV2FISH]

Re: On-board battery charger question

Your battery charger doesn't care if your batteries are hooked together in a 12 volt or a 24 volt setup. It charges the batteries the same way, a 5-5-5 bank charger charges each battery the same. If im not mistaken as it tops off one battery it transfers that power over to the next battery till all are fully charged then goes into a maintaining mode. The starting battery usually doesn't need as much of a charge as your trolling batteries so it goes to maintaining mode faster. Using the starting battery side of the charger on a trolling battery should be OK.

 

[fishrdan]

Re: On-board battery charger question

All chargers are not built the same, or get connected the same, so you have to read the manual to see how it can be connected. I've seen a couple (maybe BPS brand?) that had 2 independent circuits for the 24V TM battery bank and 1 for the start battery... The start battery output had to go on the start battery as it wasn't an independent output, where as the other 2 outputs could be connected to the 24V TM battery bank. The charger had to be wired correctly or damage could occur, and it was wired funky, something like output 1 to a TM battery, output 2 to the start battery and output 3 to the other TM battery. Weird, but that's how the manual read.

I'm not saying your charger can't be re-wired to abandon the dead channel, just check the manual to see if it's going to cause problems. Oh yeah, a 6 year old BPS charger might not be the same thing they are selling now, so you will need to reference the manual for your exact charger.