Battery charging

Anybody ever use a charged battery and power inverter to charge boat batteries? I have a bank charger but there's no power where I store my boat, about 30 minutes from where I'm living at the moment. I'm trying to figure out how to charge my batteries.

You're gonna kill the donor battery pretty fast doing that. Is there no way to hook up solar at your location? Or just bring the battery/batteries home each time for charging? The setup you describe would have you hauling batteries each trip anyway.

Dr. Strangelove said:

You're gonna kill the donor battery pretty fast doing that. Is there no way to hook up solar at your location? Or just bring the battery/batteries home each time for charging? The setup you describe would have you hauling batteries each trip anyway.

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If it wouldn't kill the one I would be charging from, I'd only have to haul one battery vs 3. I looked into the solar option, and it seems like solar is only gonna maintain the current charge. If I'm wrong though, please educate me. I'd love for that to work out.

not sure of your time line or space requirements but, a small gas generator could easily pull a 3 bank charger or a larger (45 watt) solar collector/charger would work but, setting it up would be a pain if your pressed for space or time. Bringing a spare set of batts would be the quickest way to keep your game clock running.

SouthGa Fisher said:

If it wouldn't kill the one I would be charging from, I'd only have to haul one battery vs 3. I looked into the solar option, and it seems like solar is only gonna maintain the current charge. If I'm wrong though, please educate me. I'd love for that to work out.

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Sorry for being so slow to get back to you.

This is far from the only way, but this setup would do what you need:

http://www.harborfreight.com/45-watt-solar-panel-kit-10-pc-kit-62443.html

Here's it's instructions:

http://manuals.harborfreight.com/manuals/68000-68999/68751.pdf

Essentially, you need one or more high-watt solar panels and a charge controller. The charge controller is going to be the more important part of the system, as panels are somewhat of a commodity now. You want a decent controller that will protect the investment that you have in your batteries.

Systems similar to this are what folks on sailboats (and powerboats) use to recharge their house banks. If you size the battery bank and the solar panel system correctly, you can stay anchored for weeks at a time and not have to run the mains or generators, saving on fuel and noise.

It's all about sizing the battery bank to the house load and having adequate input from the solar panels to recharge what is used. It helps if you consider power a consumable, like fuel or water. For a live aboard boat, the system needs to be able to replace the amps used in a 24 hour day within the average hours of sunlight available, thus requiring a fairly large or efficient solar panel array. If you only use the boat infrequently, the panel simply needs to be able to charge the battery bank by the time you return. (It gets a little more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it)

Good luck!

SouthGa Fisher said:

Anybody ever use a charged battery and power inverter to charge boat batteries? I have a bank charger but there's no power where I store my boat, about 30 minutes from where I'm living at the moment. I'm trying to figure out how to charge my batteries.

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Take the batteries home with you and charge them and put them back in the boat when you go back. Believe me you don't want to get stuck on the water.

https://www.amazon.com/Polycrystall...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=S220QYJT8QXCX6Y1B54N

$40

It's also good practice to keep your starting battery separate from your house bank. That way even if house load (trolling motor, stereo, lights, fridge, blenders, whatever) run down your house bank, you can always still crank up and get home. A decent battery switch is a good investment.

Eugene Stinson said:

https://www.amazon.com/Polycrystall...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=S220QYJT8QXCX6Y1B54N

$40

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Decent price for a solar cell, but you will still need a charge controller to protect the battery bank.

Dr. Strangelove said:

Decent price for a solar cell, but you will still need a charge controller to protect the battery bank.

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Also this unit only puts out .83 amp hours so it depends on how many amps you use and need to be replaced.