Boating Charging Question for the Pros.

[luckyinkentucky]

I finally talked to the previous owner of my boat today, and he told me he had something rigged up that allowed him to charge the 2 - 12v batteries through the trolling motor plug in. He was short on time, and couldn't go into detail with me, but that is all he told me.

The boat is a '95 Skeeter 200SL Fish n' Ski. He said at one time he had an adapter that you could plug into the trolling motor plug in from the wall outlet, and this would charge my batteries. He said he didn't know where it was now, or how it worked. So, I'm kind of in the dark here.

Does anyone know how to adapt a standard battery charger from Wal-Mart, Sears, or Autozone to charge 2 - 12v batteries from the trolling motor plug on the bow?

Any input or advice would be helpful.

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Boating Charging Question for the Pros.

If the batteries are wired in series to provide 24 volts to the trolling motor, it ain't going to happen. If the batteries are parallel connected providing 12V to the trolling motor, wire a trolling motor plug to the battery charger leads and plug it in. If by chance you do have a 24V system and a panel on the front of the boat has a RUN/CHARGE switch, then the same principle applies but the switch must be set to CHARGE. That breaks the connection between the two batteries and essentially connects them in parallel for charging.

 

[luckyinkentucky]

Re: Boating Charging Question for the Pros.

Any chance the 'Charge' would be in the middle of the 12/24 switch?

I was reading in my manual, and I will post it here to see what you think. It's late, and I'm having trouble comprehending what they are saying for some reason.

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Charging with 12/24 Volt EZ Charge Switch

Prop open the battery compartment doors. Connect trolling motor plug and battery charger wiring, place the 12/24v switch in the charge position, place the plug in the outlet, and turn on the charger.

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I would assume the only reason they mention to "Prop open the battery compartment doors." is because of the gases that could possibly be caused by the batteries charging even if the charging connectors aren't physically connected to the batteries. Am I correct?

 

[luckyinkentucky]

Re: Boating Charging Question for the Pros.

I think .... just to be safe I will call Skeeter tomorrow and have one of the techs explain it to me. That would be my best bet. I'll let you know what I find out.

 

[wire2]

Re: Boating Charging Question for the Pros.

Most 12 volt chargers can be converted to 24 volt. A typical one comes wired with a step down transformer into a pair of diodes connected in a full wave center tap.

By removing the center tap and installing a bridge rectifier, output will double to 24 volts at half the amps, which equals the same watts.

With an additional 3pdt toggle switch you can choose 12 or 24.

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Boating Charging Question for the Pros.

You are making this way too complicated. Put the charger on BAT 1 and charge it. Put the charger on BAT 2 and charge it. If you convert the charger to 24V it will take twice as long to charge both batteries simultaneously anyway and you don't run the risk of screwing up your charger or the electrical system on your boat. Further, unless you provide us with a diagram of how your boat is wired we can only guess at how you might achieve what you want to do.

 

[wire2]

Re: Boating Charging Question for the Pros.

>>You are making this way too complicated.<<

My intention was to establish that a 24v charger was quite do-able, and one option. I didn't really expect Lucky (or the average boater) to take it on.

I agree, find out what the original design was and go from there.