What Is a Good Battery Charger ?

[btrayfors]

Originally Posted by Sonosailor

Btrayfors: West Marine's 30 amp charger does come close, but with 14.7 Volts as the only output, and with really bad feedback from the users of the product on their website, I don't think I'll order it.

All I can tell you is that I've used one for several years, as has my marine electrician colleague (who has 2 of them) and at least one client who bought it on my recommendation. No problems with the charger at all, and for the $79 sale price it's a steal.

Re: the "14.7 volts", I'm not sure what you mean. The 30A model has charging profiles for Gels, AGMs and flooded batteries, and has a true equalization function as well.

Re: the reviews, I'd discount the first negative one "only used on dead or weak batteries", but the others are disturbing.

As they say, YMMV :-)

And, with WM's price guarantee and merchandise guarantee (they'll take it back, exchange it, match any advertised price) you can hardly go wrong. Maybe you'll get a "good one" :-)

Bill

[Stu Jackson]

The new Promarine units are pretty much the same as the Sterling units. Th old ProMariner FLYBACK chargers should be removed immediately, they will burn up your boat.

CRITICAL UPGRADES - DO THESE OR ELSE!!!

Charles --- we haven't had much success with them over the years, although they were supplied on many Catalinas by the factory or dealers.

Wiring & Installing A Battery Monitor - SailboatOwners.com

[cburger]

[QUOTE=Stu Jackson;953208]
Charles --- we haven't had much success with them over the years, although they were supplied on many Catalinas by the factory or dealers.


Stu, as I am considering a Charles charger could you please gives some more insight as to why you have been dissatisfied with their products.

[Stu Jackson]

[QUOTE=cburger;953316]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

Charles --- we haven't had much success with them over the years, although they were supplied on many Catalinas by the factory or dealers.


Stu, as I am considering a Charles charger could you please gives some more insight as to why you have been dissatisfied with their products.

Sure.

1. The older Charles chargers did not have a switch to go between types of batteries (wet, gel, AGM, etc.) You'd have to replace the whole darn charger!

2. We had reports of fires being started by the newer ones. Just a few, mind ya, but still...

3. There are a lot better ones out there.

4. Based on recent internet babble, Xantrex (who used to make good chargers) have now gone the way of the dodo bird - they have become a victim of their own success (except for the echo charger, which remains a good, reliable product).

Altogether too many people leave their boats plugged in when they are not aboard. This makes the integrity of battery chargers even more important. Having your boat burn down because you bought a less expensive or questionable charger (from experienced contributors - for instance, I'm in daily contact with over 700 C34 skippers and have 13 years with my boat) makes me feel reasonably confident that certain brands should be avoided like the plague.

[goboatingnow]

I'd say

Victron, Mastervolt and Sterling

of course you have to define what you mean as a " good battery charger"

dave

[cburger]

[QUOTE=Stu Jackson;953336]

Originally Posted by cburger

.

3. There are a lot better ones out there.

What brand do you like Stu?



Altogether too many people leave their boats plugged in when they are not aboard. This makes the integrity of battery chargers even more important. Having your boat burn down because you bought a less expensive or questionable charger (from experienced contributors - for instance, I'm in daily contact with over 700 C34 skippers and have 13 years with my boat) makes me feel reasonably confident that certain brands should be avoided like the plague.

[Ex-Calif]

Random thought - On every charter boat I have chartered the checklist says "Plug in the shore power and turn on the battery charger."

What if old sparky chooses that time to burn down the boat - My deductible or did the charter end when I dropped the keys in the mail slot?

[buzzzerk]

One battery charger for 3 battery banks. (diode isolated)
Temp compensated. (direct or programmable)
Equalize mode.
Uses less than 8A / 110vac. (40A @12v)
Multi-mode charge profiles. 2 / 3 stage ; wet / agm
Remote monitoring panel.

Xantrex is probably junk but they came feature rich.

I went from 'yellow' to 'grey' in order to up the amps to better match the battery size 225ah and get shorter charge times when on the portable (Yamaha ef1000is) generator.

However, the dang xantrex has this strange duty-cycle firmware program where it shuts down every fifteen minutes (who knows why) and does this 'hard start' on start up. This is not noticeable when on shore power. But, the gen sees the xantrex as a near short circuit at turn on (you can tell the gen is loading). And it will not carry the load from the gen economy mode. So, even tho the xantrex only uses 4A/110vac (say) the 'duty cycle' demands full amps every time it does the shutdown, restart thingy.

Totally annoying that the gen econo mode is useless.

This is the main reason I'm looking for another marine battery charger as feature rich as the xantrex w/o the dang 'duty cycle' thingy.

Did Xantrex really go 'south'; or just get taken over?? (Schneider Electric)

Thanks, guys

Tom
s/v Driftwood
Panama

[MarkSF]

Originally Posted by Ex-Calif

Random thought - On every charter boat I have chartered the checklist says "Plug in the shore power and turn on the battery charger."

What if old sparky chooses that time to burn down the boat - My deductible or did the charter end when I dropped the keys in the mail slot?

I guess you have to decide what's more likely, the boat sinking because a through-hull sprang a leak while you were away (and shore power was off, so the batteries ran down) - or the boat catching fire due to a dodgy charger!

NB, Just found out that my bilge pump wasn't working properlly for the last year. That's when the manual mode on the breaker stopped working. I thought it was just the switch, as the bilge pump would come on occasionally. Turns out, it came on when the bad connection in the bilge randomly would connect for a while.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by buzzzerk

One battery charger for 3 battery banks. (diode isolated)
Temp compensated. (direct or programmable)
Equalize mode.
Uses less than 8A / 110vac. (40A @12v)
Multi-mode charge profiles. 2 / 3 stage ; wet / agm
Remote monitoring panel.

Xantrex is probably junk but they came feature rich.

I went from 'yellow' to 'grey' in order to up the amps to better match the battery size 225ah and get shorter charge times when on the portable (Yamaha ef1000is) generator.

However, the dang xantrex has this strange duty-cycle firmware program where it shuts down every fifteen minutes (who knows why) and does this 'hard start' on start up. This is not noticeable when on shore power. But, the gen sees the xantrex as a near short circuit at turn on (you can tell the gen is loading). And it will not carry the load from the gen economy mode. So, even tho the xantrex only uses 4A/110vac (say) the 'duty cycle' demands full amps every time it does the shutdown, restart thingy.

Totally annoying that the gen econo mode is useless.

This is the main reason I'm looking for another marine battery charger as feature rich as the xantrex w/o the dang 'duty cycle' thingy.

Did Xantrex really go 'south'; or just get taken over?? (Schneider Electric)

Thanks, guys

Tom
s/v Driftwood
Panama

Try the Victron. Several models to choose from and also very feature rich.