Boat battery tenders

Loganwayne

Loganwayne

#BTL
Joined
Feb 15, 2013
Location
Clyde, North Carolina
I know a lot of people on here fish so I’m asking here as well. I can’t get my head wrapped around how to use a multi bank charger. I have 24v trolling motor and then boat runs off 12v. Is there a way to charge both at the same time without having to separate the trolling motor batteries every time or will i need to have to separate bank charges one for 12v and one for 24v?


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I have a 24V trolling motor on mine. My charger is just 2 12v outputs one on each battery. I dont unhook anything just plug in charger.
 
Infamous1 said:
I have a 24V trolling motor on mine. My charger is just 2 12v outputs one on each battery. I dont unhook anything just plug in charger.
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I was worried about it back feeding and or something like that. So if I got 3 batteries I’d just get a 3 bank charger and be good to go


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correct on the three bank, get a good one something like this.https://www.amazon.com/ProMariner-4...argid=aud-801381245258:pla-493977346015&psc=1

you will want the higher charging amps for the trolling batteries so they don't take forever to charge back up.

Also the guy at interstate battery store told me to just get a deep cycle for the accessories bank and just a starting battery for the engine. He said the dual purpose battery's (start/deep cycle) don't last, low cranking amps and cant recover like a deep cycle. Which is what my boat had in them when i got it and didn't last long after a charge.
 
After a couple multi bank chargers lost 1 bank ...I got the single battery tenders from Napa ...like 30-35 $ each ...about the size of 2 packs of cigarettes side by side

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shelby27604 said:
I always used a genius multi bank charger setup, always worked well, they come in 1-4 bank configurations.
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I’ve got a genius charger now and really like it but it’s a pain to go hook up all the batteries separately and charge them before going out now.


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The genius chargers are IP68 rated, I just leave them hooked up. I used to run (2) 3 bank chargers on a bunch of 72v electric vehicles.

They had a great warranty too, one was smoked in an thunderstorm during a power surge, and customer support got a new one in the mail free of charge.
 
Loganwayne said:
I know a lot of people on here fish so I’m asking here as well. I can’t get my head wrapped around how to use a multi bank charger. I have 24v trolling motor and then boat runs off 12v. Is there a way to charge both at the same time without having to separate the trolling motor batteries every time or will i need to have to separate bank charges one for 12v and one for 24v?


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Click to expand...

The multi-bank are all isolated and therefore there is no shared ground reference, so each bank output has it's own isolated positive and negative connections that connects to the positive and negative of each battery. The charger only cares about the voltage difference between the positive and negative of the battery on each bank output, and charges each battery according to that. So it's really like having multiple chargers in the same box, but isolated from each other.

Because of that, you don't have to disconnect any battery cables, or remove bus wires that connect two batteries in series for a 24V bank, etc. The common type for a 24V trolling setup is a 3-bank charger, and a 4-bank charger for a 36V trolling setup (or for a 24V trolling with 2 starting batteries).

Don't really worry too much about charger output amperage, as you'll have plenty of time to charge everything if you're not taking the boat out every day. The higher amperage multi-bank stuff (15A per bank or whatever) are mostly geared towards people like tournament fishermen who need to charge overnight and be back on the water the next day. If you get something like a 10A per bank, it just takes longer. That's why you often see "Tournament" or "Professional" in the names of the 15A per bank stuff, and "Sportsman" in the names of 5A or 10A per bank stuff.


Let me save you some shopping time: Buy one from Hodges Marine; they usually have about the best prices you're going to find anywhere.
They carry Dual Pro, Minn Kota, NOCO, and Pro Mariner, and those are really the only brands worth looking at for a fishing boat.
Marine On-Board Battery Chargers – Portable Boat Power Inverters
 
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I’ve got a pro mariner 3 bank. I also have a 24v trolling motor and a separate cranking battery. I’ve been pleased with mine but have only had it since the beginning of July? I went with it over the minn Kota because of the area I was putting it in. The Minn Kota was to large. Bought mine off eBay way cheaper than I could have bought elsewhere. :beer:
 
I have a two bank minnkota and a single pro-something.

but I have a VSR on my starting battery and a 2nd house battery for all electronics.

I need to take them out for the winter.
 
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