Needing an onboard charger and not sure how to setup my trolling motor

[MXHalofan]

I read several threads and didn't see the info I need yet.
I've got a 90 Javelin 396 fish and ski with 2 TM batteries and a engine cranking battery. Wanting to add an onboard charger to this boat.

I just got a 24 volt 65 lb thrust Minn Kota All terrain on the bow and not happy with the thrust so far. Going to work on the wiring. Here's info:
Boat has two 12v marine batteries in stern for TM.
Each battery has a 6 gauge positive and negative cable run to the bow TM receptacle. (four runs)
Receptacle has two jumpers to a 12 volt / 24 volt switch on the bow
I want to use one run positive cable to the receptacle, and one negative (other battery) cable, and jumper the other pos and neg terminals at the batteries to create the 24 volts I need. This will eliminate two 20 foot cable runs from my system (And a circuit breaker) and leave me with 24 volts only. Hoping this will boost TM performance.
I don't know how the chargers work and what extra steps are involved to charge these three total batteries I have. Can someone enlighten me please. Thanks much

 

[Georgesalmon]

If you get a three bank charger, you just have to run wires to each battery. Most of the new ones are self everything even taking into account different battery types auto magically. There will be instructions that are pretty easy, at least on my pro-mariner they were. There is really nothing hard about it though they suggest you don't increase the battery leads length. Though they tell you how if you have to.

 

[MXHalofan]

OK great! I read through the description of that promariner on Ebay and it didnt' mention if it was ok for 24 volt systems but it makes sense. Most guys run this voltage or higher

 

[glenn property of pam]

the charger isn't good for 24v its good for 12v three times. The charger acts like 3 battery chargers stacked together each bank only cares for one battery. I have the basspro 3 bank I think its also made by pro-mariner or at least the internal parts are. Real easy to install but the leads are always 2 short for one battery unless you have all 3 batteries on one side.

 

[MXHalofan]

So I'll need to disconnect my 24volt system before plugging it in? Was hoping to stay away from that

 

[glenn property of pam]

no mate......its a 3 bank charger it doesn't care how you have them hooked up . It can be 3 batteries in series or parallel it doesn't care. the charger has 3 sets of leads just put one set to each battery and plug it in. When the green light is on all the batteries are chargerd

 

[undone]

Also you mentioned boosting the performance, changing to a single lead will not improve the performance unless the current wires are too small. You will need to use significantly larger wire for long run though, and it can get pricy.

 

[MXHalofan]

no mate......its a 3 bank charger it doesn't care how you have them hooked up . It can be 3 batteries in series or parallel it doesn't care. the charger has 3 sets of leads just put one set to each battery and plug it in. When the green light is on all the batteries are chargerd

OK thanks a lot this is what I was hoping for. Solves one problem. Now to work on my TM

 

[NYBo]

Are you sure you have the plug on the trolling motor wired properly to get 24 volts?

 

[MXHalofan]

Are you sure you have the plug on the trolling motor wired properly to get 24 volts?

Yea, I'm reading 25 volts at the receptacle and the TM plug is connecting to the correct terminals. It sure seems more like it's only 12 volts, so I will double check when I take it out tomo.

 

[undone]

If you think it is only running on 12 volts you could disconnect one battery, if nothing changes it could be running on 12V.

 

[MXHalofan]

Think I found part of the problem with the low performance from this 65lb AT TM. The TM plug was wired for 12v only when I got the boat and I was draining only one battery my first three trips out. When I discovered the problem and got my new 24 volt TM on there, I wired correctly for 24V. That one battery that was used was low or flat on juice when I took out the new All Terrain. I charged up my batts yesterday and today in the driveway the All Terrain seems to have more speed. I bet it'll kick the bow around a lot better. I feel silly for scheming some wiring upgrades without thinking this all through. I'm going to test it in the water fishing tomo. Then I'll do the wiring upgrade I posted about and see if there's another improvement. Been working so much, it's hard to keep everything straight. Really appreciate the posters here. Main reason I bought the boat was to have fun and get away from work LOL