Onboard Charging Advice

[Duke_]

Hello, we just got our boat in the water today, fresh batteries with an all new wiring, 2 banks and switch setup, the boat is a 31' Silverton Convertable, there was an older pro mariner 20 onboard charger that i removed and brought home to test as it wasnt working last year, here at home i can say its non functioning and need to find a replacement for it. Looking online there are many options and im kind of lost. what is the correct type of charger that im lookin for? it needs to be able to power the 12V house accessories while on shore power i believe. im assuming 20-30A should be OK since all we use on shore power is the stereo and some accent/house lights.

 

[Duke_]

Re: Onboard Charging Advice

doing some reading i think i might go with this one here, its going to cost me 250$ shipped all said and done. is there any reason i should go with something different than this one? and will this charger being only 10A cut it? i use a stereo, a 5M led strip and house lighting while on shore power, and water pump for the sink(not showering)

PRONAUTIC1210P 12V10A BAT CHRG - ProMariner 63110 - iboats

 

[glenn property of pam]

Re: Onboard Charging Advice

everything on your boat is running on 12v while on shore power?

 

[Duke_]

Re: Onboard Charging Advice

Not everything, the only things in use are some cabin lighting intermittently, the water pump very rarely for the sink, some led accent lights and the stereo system. The fridge is ac/dc powered.
Batteries are 2 bank group 27s

 

[glenn property of pam]

Re: Onboard Charging Advice

sry duke i missed that you had posted. 10amps is the smallest i would go and thats based on the idea that i will at some point sleep on the boat while on shore power. As silvertips likes to say "a battery is a bucket of power" so the charger may not be putting much into the bucket with the items running during the day and when you use the water pump you are taking a little out of the bucket but at night when the stereo is off then the charger will be able to fill the bucket with power. 20amp would be better depending on cost but i think you will get away with 10.

 

[Duke_]

Re: Onboard Charging Advice

OK thank for the help. After looking around my biggest concern was finding something that was designed to supply 12v to the accessories while on the plug, not much around sub 200$, go figure. Lol. At least not many that state they are designed to power accessories. My other option is a 20a Promariner protech. It doesn't have as many features and is only 4 stage compared to the one I linked above. I'm leaning towards more amps over fancy features, do you think that's the way to go.. And since its and 3 bank charger I'm still ok with only 2 banks correct?

 

[glenn property of pam]

Re: Onboard Charging Advice

even a 3 bank charger seems overkill as you only have one bank. You will technically not be pulling off the charger as the battery will be acting as a buffer. You will be pulling power from the battery bank and the charger will be adding to the battery bank. I honestly surgest that if you like the protech you should contact there help line and get free tech advise. Chargers are a bit of a grey area as they realy dont explain what the charger is capable off in real life situations.

 

[Duke_]

Re: Onboard Charging Advice

Thanks for the quick response. I currently have 2x group 27s on a 1 2 all switch. bank 1 for starting and bank 2 for house, once I make a decision on a charger I'm planning to add a new dedicated group 24 starting battery as bank 1 and use the 2 27's in parallel for bank 2(house) to get some more time on the water out of the house bank. Both chargers I linked above specifically stated that they are designed to power 12v house accessories dockside, I assumed they have some way to sense the amp draw and match it so it's not actually discharging the batteries. I'll give pro mariner a call and get some clarification on the pros and cons of both, I might ask some other boaters what they are using Around me also, I tend to look into stuff way too much and have trouble making a final decision.. Thanks again.