Best battery charger?

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Gwylan

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What is the best battery charger?
May need a price - value trade off here - so, street price less than £100
I'm currently confused by all the 'smoke and mirrors' about battery charging. Sail makers are straight forward in comparison
Simple 2 or 3 x110AH for domestic use.
Traction battery completely separate, charged from alternator via diode
Mains available on the pontoon and smart charger on the alternator.
Biggest drain is fridge 5A @12v for [say] 30% of time.
 
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I suggest ProBudget

[/ QUOTE ] But the Probudget range are only single output chagers.

Look at some of the other ranges for multiple output chargers
 
For me, Mastervolt, Victron, Studer, Morven, Sterling. in that order and remember you get what you pay for, in chargers especially.
 
I'm using a CTEK charger originally bought for the car but surprisingly good. However the one I use is only suitable for smallish batteries up to 120AH. The bigger ones are more expensive: MULTI XS 7000 (~250Ah) @99£; MULTI XS 25000 (~500Ah) @199£

click
 
A single output charger should be ok, if you take the approach of leaving the house batteries paralled on float on the pontoon. This will restore any charge taken out by the fridge etc. The engine battery should not need regular charging, except perhaps in winter when a tiny maintenance charger as sold for motorbikes will keep it floating (e.g accumate?).
You pays yer munny as they say.
whatever charger, there is no substitute for regularly checking everything is in order, voltages, electrolyte levels....
 
A cheap charger is false economy. For a given budget, get the cheapest batteries you can and use the rest for a charger.

An expensive charger will make cheap batteries work better and last longer. A cheap charger will reck the most expensive batteries very quickly and they won't perform as well as they could.

As an example, say you had £500 for batteries and charger - spend £100 on batteries and £400 on a charger!
 
Seems a slightly extreme view Mr Hawkins?
I think it depends on how you expect to use the set up, after all the best charger is no use where there's no mains, whereas a good battery will last a little longer.
A hundred quid battery charger that is matched to your batteries could well be more than adequate. The falling price of solar panels could also affect the choices I would make, but every individual needs to weigh up their planned useage and make their own decisions. Personally I've always wanted to be able to keep ice cubes and cool beer, run a few lights and instruments with say two half hour engine runnings perday, without being dependent on shore power. I will achieve this when I get a properly insulated fridge! To me, a battery charger is for winter maintenance and occassional marina use, but I appreciate that others do thing differently. If the charger is intended to charge a few hundred Ah between weekends, then it may actually be better to use a moderate sized charger than a really big one. It's important to get one which will not overcharge the batteries but any multistage type should meet that.
 
Certainly cannot agree with you. We have average batterys and standard auto chargers. Batterys last years and only recently did we change our domestic after it had completed more than 8 years use.
Only matter that we insist is that we have shorepower whenever possible to make sure batterys are as charged as possible. There have been times when our batterys have been drained too far, but we've managed to survive. But those times have not been due to the chargers, they have been due to our over-use of supplies.
 
I looked into battery chargers some time ago and came to the conclusion that a Ctek might be a good one - a bit more sophisticated than a cheap Halford type. I would add that my small solar panel does an excellent job for most of the year though, and although it obviously doesn't quite do the same job, it really does keep the battery in good condition.
 
I wouldn't say extreme - over simplified certainly! Of course, everyone's circumstances are different and how you can charge your batteries depends on where you are.

My view, and I stand by it, is that where you have permanent access to shore power and have a charger permanently connected (probably only applies to marina based boats), then the quality of the charger is more important than the quality of the batteries.

If, on the other hand, you are a blue water cruiser and spend most nights at anchor and rely on wind/solar charging with only occasional nights on shore power; then the reverse may be true - I would go for the expensive batteries.

There is no simple answer, I suppose!
 
I agree that individual circumstances can have a great effect on system.
With regard to marina power available, hubby and I consider careful regard to having a charger that drops to maintenance charge reliably is more important than outright full charge rates. In a case where a lot of time on charge is available - then lower full rate charge is adequate. Trouble is that many boats need a high rate for short periods they have power to bring the batterys back up. IOHO, we consider high rates to possibly create their own problems and possibility of gassing or bent plates.
A lot of other boats we meet, invariably the subject of batterys comes up eventually and we are always surprised by the less years people get out of batterys compared to ours, especially when they have sohisticated charge systems.
As you say - each is different. Liveaboards have high demands and need high a/hr capacity, we are we feel in the inbetween group where we need good capacity but as we don't have liveaboard gear can survive easier.

Last comment, the most reliable and actually best charger we have, are the previous mentioned cheap car jobs that maximum output is 4A each. They have just kept going now for so long we cannot remember when we bought them. Next best ? is the auto-float car charger we bought to keep batterys sorted during winter storage.
 
I would look at this model:

**********************************************

I wouldn t....Neither would a lot of folk who value long life for their batteries.


Thiis charger has been made so safe that as soon as it hits 13.8 volts it goes to maintenance mode. This is fine for a car starter battery however deep cycle batteries like a bit of a kick to equalise the cells etc and this requires voltages to 15 volts which this charger refuses to do as it limits to 13.8 no matter what.

Fine for the occasional use but not for fully charging deep cycle batteries on a regular basis...
 
My 80A Mastervolt destroyed the two sets of batteries in less than five years with the previous owner of my boat - including one big bank of Sonnenschien. I have had to send it back to Holland once during my ownership (known design defect admitted by manufacturer causing it not to fire up). It regularly goes do-lally and I have to turn it off to save destroying my (flooded) batteries but without a doubt it has stressed them due to overcharging.

Under no circumstances will I ever buy a Mastervolt charger again and could never recommend one to anyone else.

Note: This complaint has been made in full to the company who only 'repaired' my charger after threats and a great deal of correspondence and probably only because as an electrical engineer I knew what I was talking about. I don't believe that I have a bad example of this product, I think that it is a defective design. I also believe that Mastervolt are aware of the defective design. Had my charger been just a bad example, surely their Quality Control would have picked this up when it was sent back to Holland?
 
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Talk to Halfords techical about their battery chargers. There used to be someone there who was very knowlegable on the subject.

I would look at this model:

web page

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We have similar and can honestly report that we are very satisfied with it. When away for long periods we leave it connected to the car - like most modern cars nowadays the electrical demand even when parked drains battery, during winter we use it to maintain the boat batterys. No problems at all.
Only problem we have is trying to find the Marine label on it !
 
For 300Ah you will need at least a 30 Amp charger and to charge the batteries properly you will need a 3 or 4 stage charger so unless you chuck some of your batteries away you are not going to have enough money to buy a charger capable of charging your current set of batteries.

You need to be realistic here, you cannot expect to have a large capacity of batteries and then use a 10 amp charger and expect it to do the job - the charger would be over-stressed for a long period.

From what you have said, I think you should think about a proper switching system like the one below which will give your engine and domestic good charge while using the engine.

1155_4037.jpg


After that, then think about a good marine charger.
 
As you have said, it all depends on your cruising style. We have a Guest 30A charger and four batteries -- a spiral cell Optima for dedicated engine start and windlass and three standard deep cycle units, one for the fridge and the remaining pair form the House group. Charge under engine is managed via an Adverc system. Not a cheap set up, but it had served us well in the past three years of cruising down to the Med and back. I think the philosophy of buying the best that you can afford applies equally well as an answer to your question
 
Don't forget that a 30A charger will only give you 30A. So, if your standing load - lighting, fridge, telly, laptop, etc., is 20A then only 10A is available to charge the battery. Not a problem for the average yachtsman but is the key issue on a liveaboard cruising yacht.

One other point is that if you have a generator you don't want it to be running for hours upsetting you and your neighbours with noise and smell. Much better to have a big charger and push as much as you can into the batteries in well under an hour. Much more than an hour can be pretty wearing on other nearby anchored vessels. That's why my charger is 80A (for a 540Ah battery) so we can always put 60A net into the battery even will a full evening load running.
 
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