Battery Charger

[mrlee]

Hi everybody. Well, I finally got my boat here and what a mess the electrics are...First item of need is a battery charger. I was looking at the Xantrex for around $300...any other ideas? I have a house bank of 3 Lead acid(300Ah), and a start bank of 1 group 31...I plan to add 2 more (200Ah) to house bank...I do not know all the jargon about combiners/chargers etc...Help is needed!
Thanks a lot...

[mrlee]

OH, I ordered 450 watts of solar and a Xantrex C60 controller as well...Sorry...I forgot as the shipping will be 4-6 weeks in Mex.

[smac999]

the current xantrax chargers are junk. stay away.


with 500ah of house battery I would get a 60+a charger.


if you want a big inverter in the future. a charger / inverter is the way to go. like a magnum ms 2012

[mrlee]

Whew...I was seriously looking at the Xantrex chargers...Thanks for the look-out. Good idea about the inverter/charger...I am going to try to be 12V self-sufficient as there are no places here to plug into, but I'm sure I'll need 110AC sometime in the future......Thanks

[pcmm]

If you still can, I would cancel the C60 conroller, its PWM which is inefficient . you should try to get a MPPT based controller for the best results from your panels.

the Xantrex controllers aren't bad for the money. We had a truecharge 40 on our last boat and it happily survived liveaboard abuse!

[smac999]

the old true charges are made in north America and still going strong on boats. the current true charge 2's are made overseas and last about a year. I have replaced lots of new ones. maybe only a couple of original true charge ones.

[MarkSF]

My Truecharge 2 has been installed since 2009. So far, so good. The only issue has been that it would randomly reset the temperature setting, so I'd find it on cold, normal, hot.... I fixed this by installing the battery temperature sensor which seems to override the manual setting problem.

[mrlee]

Hey y'all...well, since I am in Mexico and I cannot deal with any kind of warranty issues I need to get something that will last. Any input on the Morningside MPPT's? Outback? I know they are a bit high end ($$$- for me) but if they are trouble free then I am there.
I appreciate all the input...there are sooo many things and choices out there.

[Dave Lochner]

Just installed a ProNauticP 50 Amp charger. Nice unit, does what it should do to charge and preserve your batteries.

Chargers should be at least 10% of the house bank. With my 460 Amp/hour bank (4 6v GCs) I purchased a 50 amp charger. With your plans you may want to go larger.

Here's a link to the ProNautic 60 Amp charger