Onboard battery charger

[Atchman2]

I have an almost new Tracker 16SV that I LOVE. The thing is charging the batteries are a pain in the ass! It is just hard to get to since they place the battery under the front deck and you have to struggle to reach it.

Mine is a standard 12 volt system. I have another cranking battery in the back. I really only need the onboard charger for the front battery. What type of onboard charger do I need?

 

[BigCityBubba]

I am kind of in the same boat except I need a 2 bank charger where as you need a single bank charger. You can get away with 5 amp but I prefer 10 amps. I would also get something that charges lithium as well even if you don't have lithium batteries. You don't want to have to buy a new charger if you decide to go lithium later on. I have had several onboard chargers in my lifetime but never one that specifically said it would charge lithium. My understanding is that a normal onboard charger will charge lithium but not to 100%. Also, some chargers can damage lithium if they have a built in desulfator which are great for lead batteries. The NOCO Genius chargers claim to charge all types of batteries including lithium lifeop4 batteries and they have great reviews. I am sure others on here have better incite into a do-all charger. I am seriously looking into the NOCO Genius GENPRO10x2 charger.

 

[WTM]

i wouldnt fix mount a charger because you really need to top charge the cranking battery once per month as well unless you like buying batteries every year or other year. id install a quick disconnect cable so you can just plug a charger into the cable when you need to charge them. also keep in mind if those are stanard interstate flooded batteries youll need to check water levels and add if necessary or else youll kill those batteries in a year or so.

those are usually 80ah batteries so i wouldnt charge them over 15A.

a 4-10A charger will do. noco has had a string of bad chargers which have overcharged and undercharged batteries. i wouldnt trust them.

 

[BigCityBubba]

i wouldnt fix mount a charger because you really need to top charge the cranking battery once per month as well unless you like buying batteries every year or other year. id install a quick disconnect cable so you can just plug a charger into the cable when you need to charge them. also keep in mind if those are stanard interstate flooded batteries youll need to check water levels and add if necessary or else youll kill those batteries in a year or so.

those are usually 80ah batteries so i wouldnt charge them over 15A.

a 4-10A charger will do. noco has had a string of bad chargers which have overcharged and undercharged batteries. i wouldnt trust them.

Interesting you mention undercharging. I have had a dual pro, a pro mariner, and a couple of no name brands and none of them fully charged my batteries. They may have when I first bought them. I ended up using my 2/10/25 amp smart charger with desulfator to charge my batteries individually. The concept is great but I have yet to be totally satisfied. I was hoping things had changed in the last 10 years. If you go look on amazon, the NOCO that I am looking at has over a thousand reviews and has a 4.8 out of 5 star rating which is unheard of with anything I have ever bought on Amazon. There is only one charger that has higher reviews and thats the minn kota precision which has a 4.9 for 500 reviews. Also, it can't charge lithium batteries.

 

[WTM]

Interesting you mention undercharging. I have had a dual pro, a pro mariner, and a couple of no name brands and none of them fully charged my batteries. They may have when I first bought them. I ended up using my 2/10/25 amp smart charger with desulfator to charge my batteries individually. The concept is great but I have yet to be totally satisfied. I was hoping things had changed in the last 10 years. If you go look on amazon, the NOCO that I am looking at has over a thousand reviews and has a 4.8 out of 5 star rating which is unheard of with anything I have ever bought on Amazon. There is only one charger that has higher reviews and thats the minn kota precision which has a 4.9 for 500 reviews. Also, it can't charge lithium batteries.

now read the one and two star reviews. all of the noco's are basically the same, either overcharged and melted my batteries, the charger got so hot it burned up, etc. out of 15,000 4.8 reviews, 10% one and two star reviews are mostly all the same for several of their chargers.

either they have a hardware design flaw or the firmware algorithms has a bug in it. there shouldnt be that many overcharging failures if there are hardware safety mechanisms built in. stuff like this shouldnt happen but once in a blue moon and usually its bad battery pm routine:

scroll down on this thread to what buckwild had a problem with:

Onboard battery charger question

My G3 has a 120 male receptacle mounted near the stern of the boat. Really convenient when I get home; just pop the rubber cover and plug it in. Here is my question. Do you guys that have the onboard chargers leave them plugged in continuously like a trickle charger or unplug it once all 3...

www.tndeer.com

ive seen two odyssey agm's and a lead acid to the very same thing.

all that said i dont usually knock a product just because i dont like it or that im a brand fluffy kittens. its because if there is a safety issue that can get someone stuck out on the water, hurt or killed. same goes for lithium batteries like dakota's. if they dont care to fix the short circuit protection failure in some of their BMS' then im definately not recommending them.

if i was to buy an onboard charger today itd proably be a minn kota or another pro mariner.

i bought a victron blue ip65 12/10 recently and i absolutely love this thing. it will wake an LFP and charge even at 0V.

 

[BigCityBubba]

I saw that but that was one review out of 4375 ratings. Out of 4375 ratings, 120 were bad ratings. Thats actually really good because most people only comment if they have an issue. Also, I thought it was a little strange that he is using an onboard charger to charge the batteries on his atv. To me, that's not an indication of a design flaw. Its an indication that they got a flawed unit or perhaps they used it inappropriately so although it was scary to read, it didn't affect my opinion on it much. The interesting thing is that if you google best onboard chargers, all of them list NOCO. I realize allot of them are paid to write a good review. Seeing as there are issues, I probably will take NOCO out of my choices for now.

I had a promariner and it lasted maybe a season before it stopped charging my batteries fully. It replaced a dual pro which started doing the same thing. It caused me to give up on onboard chargers. Maybe they have improved since I bought the last one.

The victron blue ip65 12/10 is not an onboard charger, is it. I already have a charger that works great. I was just hoping for the convenience of an onboard charger. I was also hoping to find one that charges Lithium LifeoP4 batteries as well. I don't think my smart charger would work for it based on what I have read. I don't have lithiums yet but I am going to have to buy new batteries soon and it is a serious consideration.

 

[WTM]

sounds good. good luck.

 

[bluball]

I am kind of in the same boat except I need a 2 bank charger where as you need a single bank charger. You can get away with 5 amp but I prefer 10 amps. I would also get something that charges lithium as well even if you don't have lithium batteries. You don't want to have to buy a new charger if you decide to go lithium later on. I have had several onboard chargers in my lifetime but never one that specifically said it would charge lithium. My understanding is that a normal onboard charger will charge lithium but not to 100%. Also, some chargers can damage lithium if they have a built in desulfator which are great for lead batteries. The NOCO Genius chargers claim to charge all types of batteries including lithium lifeop4 batteries and they have great reviews. I am sure others on here have better incite into a do-all charger. I am seriously looking into the NOCO Genius GENPRO10x2 charger.

The older nocos had problems,the new ones work great.I had a noco genpro for a couple yrs ,it worked great.We sell a few at the shop and havent heard a bad thing from any customer yet,i work at performance fishing electronics.Minnkota chargers are our top sellers though and the minnkota d series and pcl chargers will charge our ionic lithium batteries we sell fine.Actually any minnkota d series that is 2019 or newer will charge the ionic lithium batteries we sell.Dualpro was probally the best charger for agm and wet cell,but there lithium charger setups arnt that great.I still own a 4 bank 15amps per bank dualpro i bought in 2010 and it still works fine on my wet cell batteries.On my fiberglass boat im actually running 2 ionic chargers on my lithiums with the noco charger plug and no problems.

 

[BigCityBubba]

The older nocos had problems,the new ones work great.I had a noco genpro for a couple yrs ,it worked great.We sell a few at the shop and havent heard a bad thing from any customer yet,i work at performance fishing electronics.Minnkota chargers are our top sellers though and the minnkota d series and pcl chargers will charge our ionic lithium batteries we sell fine.Actually any minnkota d series that is 2019 or newer will charge the ionic lithium batteries we sell.Dualpro was probally the best charger for agm and wet cell,but there lithium charger setups arnt that great.I still own a 4 bank 15amps per bank dualpro i bought in 2010 and it still works fine on my wet cell batteries.On my fiberglass boat im actually running 2 ionic chargers on my lithiums with the noco charger plug and no problems.

Thank you for the information. Do you all keep much in stock or do you do mostly online business? You are in Camden. right? I am in Paris. I will have to run down and see what you all have in stock. I had no idea you were there. I never go down 70 in that direction.

 

[medic]

This is what I have on my boat, it is charging 3 batterys.
Amazon product ASIN B08G3F4RN8

 

[bluball]

Thank you for the information. Do you all keep much in stock or do you do mostly online business? You are in Camden. right? I am in Paris. I will have to run down and see what you all have in stock. I had no idea you were there. I never go down 70 in that direction.

Think we have one instock,1 and 2 bank chargers have been selling fast lately.Think its the noco genpro 10amp single bank.We have some minnkota single bank 6amp chargers also,probally have a couple of them.731 4418965 if you want to holler and make sure we have one before you stop by.

 

[megalomaniac]

i wouldnt fix mount a charger because you really need to top charge the cranking battery once per month as well unless you like buying batteries every year or other year. id install a quick disconnect cable so you can just plug a charger into the cable when you need to charge them. also keep in mind if those are stanard interstate flooded batteries youll need to check water levels and add if necessary or else youll kill those batteries in a year or so.

those are usually 80ah batteries so i wouldnt charge them over 15A.

a 4-10A charger will do. noco has had a string of bad chargers which have overcharged and undercharged batteries. i wouldnt trust them.

So...

on a day like yesterday where I used the trolling battery a ton in the wind, plus had a 1.9ah baitsaver pump hooked to the trolling battery (group 27), I had used more of the juice than normal. When I got home, I hooked it to my 35aH fast charger for 2 hours, then pulled that off and used my smart 10ah charger to complete the charge for what ended up being another 4-5 hours. I was trying to get my trolling battery charged back up at the house in time to get the boat to the storage unit before bedtime (didn't work).

Should I abandon using the 35ah fast charge to start the charge (only for an hour or two on a depleted battery) and reduce time needed by the 10ah smart charger. I know if I try to fully charge at 35a, I'm going to heat the battery up and reduce it's life... but will it hurt to use it just for a couple hours on a depleted battery? The battery was not hot after using the 35ah charger yesterday.

 

[WTM]

So...

on a day like yesterday where I used the trolling battery a ton in the wind, plus had a 1.9ah baitsaver pump hooked to the trolling battery (group 27), I had used more of the juice than normal. When I got home, I hooked it to my 35aH fast charger for 2 hours, then pulled that off and used my smart 10ah charger to complete the charge for what ended up being another 4-5 hours. I was trying to get my trolling battery charged back up at the house in time to get the boat to the storage unit before bedtime (didn't work).

Should I abandon using the 35ah fast charge to start the charge (only for an hour or two on a depleted battery) and reduce time needed by the 10ah smart charger. I know if I try to fully charge at 35a, I'm going to heat the battery up and reduce it's life... but will it hurt to use it just for a couple hours on a depleted battery? The battery was not hot after using the 35ah charger yesterday.

lead acid batteries cant take a high amp fast charge. itll kill the lifecycle of the battery. 20% of C max, especially for deep cycle and charging at a higher rate is counter productive with the higher resistance of the thicker plates. itll get to a point to where it will quit taking a charge until the charge current is lowered.

cranking batteries can take a wee bit more but most manufacturers limit to 20 amps at max which is considered a fast charge, except for specialty batteries.

lithiums are right opposite and most BMS' can handle a full 1C charge.

 

[bluball]

We got more 1 bank 10amp minnkota chargers in today.So we have 6amp and 10amp single bank chargers instock now.We also have one noco genpro 10amp single bank instock.