Shore power battery charger

westernman

westernman

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My MasterVolt charger has given up the ghost. It has become more and more difficult to get it to start up when connected to shore power, and now refuses altogether. It is 15 years old - so little chance of getting it fixed.

I was thinking of getting a CTEK M300 or CTEK MXS25.
Are these good? I seem to remember seeing a glowing review somewhere.

Any others to recommend?

My house battery bank is 440AH divided into 2 banks each with 110AH lead/acid batteries.

The mastervolt could do 60A - but this seems excessive. If I am tied up to a marina with shore power, I am going to be there for at least 12 hours so 25A charging capacity looks like it should be adequate. The data sheet recommends the about chargers for banks up to 500AH.
 
Battery chargers don't seem to have a sense line in them any more - and I have a diode thingy in the circuit to separte the two banks.

May be better just to connect the two house banks together and connect the charger directly there??
 
michaelchapman said:
Battery chargers don't seem to have a sense line in them any more - and I have a diode thingy in the circuit to separte the two banks.

May be better just to connect the two house banks together and connect the charger directly there??
Click to expand...

The Ctek chargers only have one output; you might consider a charger with 2 isolated outputs. Out of interest, why are your domestic batteries split into 2 banks?
 
I've used several of the Ctek chargers & been very pleased with them. Currently have xs7000 charging 2x110AH batts. Have you any solar power?
 
pvb said:
The Ctek chargers only have one output; you might consider a charger with 2 isolated outputs. Out of interest, why are your domestic batteries split into 2 banks?
Click to expand...

No idea. I can see no reason. I always use them with the switch connecting both banks in parallel.
Otherwise, may be better would be two smaller CTEK chargers?
 
I've fitted a few Victron Blue Power 25a chargers, they are available in one or three outputs and never had a complaint yet, similar price to the one you describe for the single output.
 
Presumably all these chargers can cope with the engine alternator charging. The engine alternator goes through a big diode before going to the batteries and is controlled with a Balmar intelligent thingy.

The thing which interests me with the Ctek chargers is the desulfinisation/recondition thing. I have not seen that on anything else.
 
michaelchapman said:
No idea. I can see no reason. I always use them with the switch connecting both banks in parallel.
Otherwise, may be better would be two smaller CTEK chargers?
Click to expand...

If you always have them parallelled, why not permanently wire them that way and chuck out the diode splitter? Then have one Ctek charger for the whole bank.
 
michaelchapman said:
The thing which interests me with the Ctek chargers is the desulfinisation/recondition thing. I have not seen that on anything else.
Click to expand...


My Ring Smartcharger has a reconditioning facility. It can be initiated manually but it will do it automatically if it decides it should . Mine is only a bench charger and not intended for permanent marine installations

One of the Smartchager Plus range was voted best buy in a recent PBO article. I think they may be suitable for fixed installation but the biggest output is only 16 amps and only the small ones, <4amp, are IP rated.

Happy with my Ring for use in the garage but if I wanted a fixed compact charger for the boat it would probably be a CTEK
 
I have used a Ctek 25 A charger for over 10 years and it has performed very well.
But with a 440 Ah bank I would consider a charger with larger capacity. If you connect to shore power when the bank is down by 50 percent I reckon you will just about get the bank fully charged in 12 hours. But only if there are no side loads (which there will be if you stay aboard...)
My own bank is 240 Ah, with 440 Ah I would look at 40 A at least.
 
BabaYaga said:
I have used a Ctek 25 A charger for over 10 years and it has performed very well.
But with a 440 Ah bank I would consider a charger with larger capacity. If you connect to shore power when the bank is down by 50 percent I reckon you will just about get the bank fully charged in 12 hours. But only if there are no side loads (which there will be if you stay aboard...)
My own bank is 240 Ah, with 440 Ah I would look at 40 A at least.
Click to expand...

Mmm. Then may be it should be two Cteks?? One for each bank. That brings the next question, can the outputs of two Ctek's be connected together? Which is what effectively happens if I have my rotary switch on "both" - i.e. in normal use.
 
BabaYaga said:
I have used a Ctek 25 A charger for over 10 years and it has performed very well.
But with a 440 Ah bank I would consider a charger with larger capacity. If you connect to shore power when the bank is down by 50 percent I reckon you will just about get the bank fully charged in 12 hours. But only if there are no side loads (which there will be if you stay aboard...)
My own bank is 240 Ah, with 440 Ah I would look at 40 A at least.
Click to expand...

Actually 12 hours is probably a minimum. In reality we don't arrive after 7pm and we rarely leave before 11am. So it would be exceptional for us to be hooked up for less than 16 hours in one go, and exceptional for us to arrive with batteries already depleted that far (it they were it would be after a longish passage and in which case we would not be leaving again so quickly.....).

So may be one 25A thingy is enough?
 
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