I like Promariner. Great support.
Mine has treated me well.
Time to buy one . Not going nuts on price, 2 bank charger made for boat not wussy clips, hardwired. I see a lot of Prosport and Genius for sale reasonable. Or ????
I have a Victron IP22 three bank 30A charger. I bought it to balance charge my LiFePO4 batteries which worked well at 10A each. And I recently used it to charge a single AGM which it did at 30A. Bluetooth interface is very intuitive. About $230.I would at least go with a 2 bank charger because you may someday add a second bank. The smart chargers today will realize there is only 1 bank and put all the charge there. If you add a second bank in the future the charger will split the charge according to how much each bank needs. Don’t forget to add a fuse or breaker at the output of the charger to protect the cables to the battery.
I'm leaning toward a 3 bank. If I ever get the Westerbeast running.........
I have a Victron IP22 three bank 30A charger. I bought it to balance charge my LiFePO4 batteries which worked well at 10A each. And I recently used it to charge a single AGM which it did at 30A. Bluetooth interface is very intuitive. About $230.
https://www.victronenergy.com/chargers/blue-smart-ip22-charger
Peter
For me, my need for an additional battery charger is as backup only. I don't have room for a dedicated mounted battery charger.So do you all put a generator battery on as a "bank" also?
I’m with Peter in being fan of the Victron chargers. They aren’t much more money but you won’t have to buy it twice. Great interface, programability, and reliability. I’ve bought a few of these (Victron chargers, including this model) and have been happy with every one.
So do you all put a generator battery on as a "bank" also?
I debated about it and decided against it. Here's my thinking...So do you all put a generator battery on as a "bank" also?
I debated about it and decided against it. Here's my thinking...
My other 3 battys are all 8D (AGMs) and my Gen is a Gp27 AGM
I felt it better to charge similar size battys / banks vs combining large & small (don't know if it a valud concern or not?)
My 3 bank charger serves 1 8D for each bank
Gen has its own alt to charge gen batty
ChrisPrevious boat, with two big main battery banks and a much smaller genset battery, with a ProMariner 3-bank ProTech-1240 charger...
The builder connected all three banks. The charger instruction manual specifically dis-recommended (?) the situation where one battery (as for a generator) was much smaller than the other two. And sure enough, eventually I noticed some bubbling on the genset's AGM battery (which is what led me back to the manual's recommendation).
After that, I left the generator battery off the charger, just used the genset's alternator for charging. But I also added jumper cables to the boat stores.
That was an old charger, though, maybe not as versatile as more recent products.
Our current boat came with it's own dedicated charger for the genset battery. Don't have to use it much, given alternator charging.
-Chris