Choosing a Battery Charger for a Boat
Transcript is auto-generated.
[Music] hi I'm Jeff Cote with Pacific yacht systems and what we're going to talk about is battery chargers what is a battery charger a battery charger is a device that converts AC that can come either from shore power or a generator and you convert that power 4 to DC and it allows you to recharge your batteries and modern battery chargers are basically what are called smart battery chargers meaning they follow through a three-stage step bulk absorption float some of them aren't even doing a fourth stage now where do they actually stop charging the batteries and then recharge the flow and battery chargers can be left on your boat indefinitely you know that's that's why they're better than the older Ferro resonant chargers on my boat I've had my battery charger on for now since the owning my boat for 10 11 12 years and I leave it on all the time whenever I'm connected to shore power and I never have to worry if my batteries are gonna be overcharged and it's a really good way to maintain your batteries and to have your batteries last longer because when you're not on your boats your batteries are not depleting or self discharging battery chargers come in so many different sizes from different manufacturers you know you can start from a battery charger 5 amps and we've done up to you know 100 amp 24 volt chargers what I like about battery chargers is nowadays is that you can even customize or change the profile of the battery chemistry so if you've got a battery charger on your boat and you're changing your batteries to for example AGM make sure that your charger is compatible with AGM batteries and the other thing that you want to look for is as we all add more and more batteries on our boat the minimum charge rate of your charger should be at least 10% of your battery capacity so for instance if you've got 4 golf carts flooded lead-acid wired in a 12 volt bank you're looking at about a charge rate of a minimum about 40 amps or 50 ant's charge rate for those batteries so those are the two things to look for having a charger that is compatible for the battery chemistry that you have and also making sure that your battery charger is the right charge rate for your batteries if you've got more questions about battery chargers contact us at pacific yacht systems thanks for listening
