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| I was thinking of adding an onboard charger to my rig. I have 3 batteries,1 cranking,2 deep cycles in paralell for my 12 volt trolling motor. My question is should I go with a 1, 2 or 3 bank charger?Does my cranking battery need to be hooked up to the onboard charger? thanks musky freaks! | |
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Posts: 4266
| Your cranking battery should get charged by the outboard. I had the same set-up, and I ran leads from the charger to both of the deep cycle batteries. That's what the directions told me to do anyway. 2 batteries in series is the way to go. I could fish an entire weekend without charging.
Beav | |
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Posts: 31
Location: Fairfield, IA | Guest,
Not quite certain of how you are defining 'onboard charger'. If you want to charge the cranking battery with your outboard, when your outboard is running, I believe you can only charge your crank battery. This is a separate unit connected to your big motor and is designed to charge the crank battery only.
If instead you want to hook up a charger to charge all your batteries, I believe you would get a 2 bank charger. One is for the cranking battery and the other cable would be for your two trolling motor batteries. Since you have in wired in parallel, one charger cable would cover these two batteries since they are essentially charged as one large battery. Connect the positive on one battery and the negative on the other battery. I suppose you could get a 3 bank charger and charge each of your trolling batteries individually, but I believe to do that you would also need to add some type of cut off switch or isolator to electrically separate the two batteries during charging.
Do a search on here as there are numerous posts regarding batteries and the way to hook them up.
If you have a 12 volt motor, that is designed to be 12 volt only, I would not ever hook your batteries in series. That would put 24 volts to the motor causing you a big problem.
I have three Interstate batteries and a 5/5 ProMite battery charger. 5 amps to the cranking battery and 5 amps to the two trolling motor batteries wired in parallel. For my amount of fishing, 2 - 3 times per week, it works just fine. If you are fishing daily or frequently with long periods on the trolling motor, you may want to move up to a higher amp charger. More amps recharges more quickly.
Good Luck,
Dave. | |
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Posts: 208
Location: Sun Prairie, WI | I also have 2 trolling batteries rigged in parralell + to + and - to - I hook the positive for the trolling motor on 1 batter and the neg to the other. Same with my charger. I have a 2 bank chager, 1 lead goes to the cranking battery and the other goes to the 2 trolling batteries. Pos. on 1 batter and neg on the other. I have my cranking battery on the charger because my charging system on my outboard no longer works. Even if it did I would still want to charge the battery every night since I dont run the outboard long enough to charge the battery. Seems to work fine for me, just my 2 cents. | |
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Posts: 3480
Location: Elk River, Minnesota | Hiya,
With your two deep cycles in parallel, you can get away with charging both off of one bank of a 2-bank charger. The time it will take to charge will be doubled since you are charging 2 batteries instead of 1. With this set-up, your second set of leads could go to the cranking battery, which, depending on what kind of electronics you are running would be a good idea. Consider if you are running a GPS, a graph, a stereo, and potentially if you are running at night, your night lights, you could run down your cranking battery if you are not running from spot to spot all day and running the big motor a bunch. By doing this, you allow every battery to be charged over night, unless you run your two deep cycles down a long way due to wind, higher speeds, etc.
With a 3-bank charger, you can charge all batteries independently...even the two in parallel without worry of damage, or having to unhook a jumper of some kind to isolate the batteries. This mainly allows for a faster charge since all 3 batteries are receiving an independent charge.
If you stick with a 2 bank charger, I'd suggest getting one with a higher amount of amps per bank. This will help to cut down on charging time.
If you don't run a bunch of electronics off of your cranking battery, you could get away with not putting any set of leads on it....the big motor will do the job, given it is running enough to do so. Cranking batteries are designed for a quick discharge and quick charge, so it isn't a huge deal to not charge it. It's when you have a bit of electronics running off of it that can cause issues.
I have a 2 bank charger and a 24 volt system up front. What I did is ran one bank to one of the deep cycles up front, and ran the other lead to the other battery up front, then used some 6 gauge wire to connect the battery in the back (dual purpose battery) with one battery in parallel. This way, all 3 batteries get charging, and by morning, all 3 batteries are fully charged and ready to go. I would not suggest this if you have a basic starting battery in the rear, though.
I put a dual purpose back there since that battery runs 2 gps systems (one at the console, and one at the bow) a depth finder in the rear, and a stereo, which is usually on when I am by myself. I don't run the big motor all that much, and when I do, they are short runs so charging is not all that high on the go. B
Before I configured the way I have it now, I would find that after a few days, my starting (dual purpose) battery was low enough that it could not turn over the main motor. Since changing to the configuration I have now, I'm fully charged each morning.
You can do it on two banks..but you may find a 2 bank that runs 20 amps on each bank to be the same price as a three-bank that runs 10 on each bank. If that is the case, I'd go with the 3 bank...
No doubt, once it is in, you will never go back to a portable charger....
Steve
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Posts: 115
Location: Birch Run | I put a minnkota mk330 3 bank on last year and love it. Pretty much same setup, 24v trolling motor, and two cranking batteries which only one is hooked up to the onboard. I have all my electronics hooked up to one cranking battery. The other just my starting cables. I have a perko battery switch which I put on all, to charge both cranking batteries while I have the big motor running. I highly recomend two cranking batteries if you have the room. Color units, marine radio's,cdplayers, lights,live well pumps, pull alot juice, and if your fishing along time inbetween running you can wear a cranking battery down. I fried my ignition trying to jump my cranking battery one year not fun. | |
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Posts: 388
| Contact the manufacturer of the charger on their recommendations regarding charging of the two batteries in parraler on a single bank. I have a Pro Mariner and they did not recommend it. I use a single bank for each battery. Does not matter if it is wired in parallel or series since you are going across the terminals of a single battery.
Have never needed anything beyond the charging capability of my main motor for the cranking battery so I would say that a 2 bank would do the job unless you are having to recharge your cranking battery right now... | |
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adding onboard charger