Charging Batteries

[zman]

While first I would like to say thanks for the advise on what batteries to buy and whow to hook the them up

So I have 2 (27 series deep cycle Interstate Marine rv )

My question is how do you go about charging them do I have to diconnect everything to charge?

Can I charge both of them at the same time By puttung the positive on 1 battery and the negative on the other

Aslo I will need to get a deep cycle charger till I Install and onboard charger any recomendations on a brand or were to buy the charger

 

Thanks again for all the advise

[Terry]

you need to charge them one at a time or get a 2 bank charger or a 24v charger or change the wiring each time you charge from series to parallel.

[zman]

So I guess I need to remove the jumper I have going to each of them that makes them the 24V system

[Terry]

no..if you use a single bank 12 v charger you can leave everything hooked up and charge one at a time, hooking up the charger in the normal way on both batteries red to pos black to neg. then once the first battery is charged move the charger to the second one and charge

[lew]

I use 2 deep cycles for my 12 volt trolling motor and have them permanentely hooked to 10 amp Guest 2611 on-board charger in the front of the boat.

 

The 4 smaller leads coming from the bottom of the picture, 2 red / 2 black, are from the charger.......one set of red & black to each battery

 

The leads at the top go to the troll motor...red to one battery positive terminal and the black to the other battery negative terminal.

 

The heavy grey cables join it all together

 

I also installed a 40 amp circuit breaker to the top left terminal

 

Hope that offers you some help

 

[zman]

Thanks

Right now I have no onboard charger

I have a 24V Minn-Kota 80lbs Maxxum

So I have positive on the trolling motor going to one battery and the negative going to the other battery and then I have a thicker cable joining the 2 off them togeather . I will have to get a 40 amp circuit breaker

My main concern is the proper way to charge them until I get the onboard charger

If you charge one at a time won't the cable joining them togeather cause you to charge both

Thanks guys for helping

This stuff is new to me

[Terry]

no it will not

as long as you have the red to pos. and the black to neg on only one of the batteries you will be charging 1 battery at 12 volts

 

it would be wrong, if you put the chargers red on the red of the first battery where the red pos. lead to the motor is and the black neg to the other battery neg. post where the motors black neg wire is..then you would be hooked to both batteries and that would be bad

[zman]

Well i guess I'll buy a charger that has a deep cycle charge system correct and do the one baterry at a time

Thanks again you guys have been a great help

[Guest lundboy]

Zman, Here is some background on battery charging etc.:

 

Parallel:

Lew describes a 12volt parallel hookup. This is a hookup wherein the positive of each battery are hooked up together and the negative of each battery are hooked up together. You then connect your electric motor to the positive and negative on one battery. This will give you 12volts with twice the runtime you would expect from one battery.

 

Series:

This is a hookup wherein the positive of one battery has a link to the negative of the other battery. You then connect your electric motor to the positive on the free positive terminal of one battery and negative on the free negative terminal on the other battery. This will give you 24volts with the runtime you would expect from one battery. 24volt motors need more voltage but they are more efficient at utilizing the battery power and in some cases get the same run time or better than a 12volt motor on two batteries in parallel (Make sure you have a 24 volt motor for this setup).

 

Charging:

In a parallel (12V) configuration, you can charge the batteries while they are hooked in parallel with a standard single bank battery charger. It will take twice as long to charge because the charger sees the batteries as one big battery. Put three in parallel and it will take 3 times as long etc. If you get a 2 bank charger (a good one), you still don't have to disconnect the batteries, the charger will charge each separately and will charge in the regular time.

 

In a series (24v) configuration, you can charge the batteries while they are hooked in series with a standard single bank battery charger (depending on the charger) by hooking up to one battery at a time positive to positive, negative to negative. Again it will take twice as long to charge because you will have to charge one battery, then hook up to the next and charge it separately. If you get a 2 bank charger (a good one), you still don't have to disconnect the batteries, the charger will charge each separately and will charge in the regular time.

 

Remember to give good ventilation to the battery compartment by propping up the lid during charging, you wouldn't want a hydrogen explosion.

 

Hope this helps!

Edited May 9, 2007 by lundboy

[misfish]

DONT TELL ANYONE BUT I JUST GOT BACK FROM THE CITY,DID A QUICK STOP YOU KNOW WHERE AND THEY HAVE THEM ON SALE. THE CHARGERS THAT IS.

 

 

Got to go here comes the boss.