promariner on board charger question

[Hoffer]

So...i have a promariner on board charger.

I had a battery hooked up that I know is not fully charged at all. I hooked up my trolling motor and pressed the button to see how charged it was - and no lights came on...so it was dead.

I hook up the charger and it blinks green - but no red light comes on to indicate it is charging. However, I know it should be charging cause the battery is dead!

Any suggestions? Will the green light blink and no red light come on if the battery is just "too dead"? I am thinking the battery is possibly shot? But wouldnt the red light still come on to try and charge it?

Thanks for any help!

[PerchJerker]

Assuming you have multiple batteries in your boat and multiple banks on your charger, you can move the charger leads to different batteries and then see what your charger lights are showing you ---- that should let you narrow it down to a bad battery or a bad charger.

Some chargers will not charge a battery if it has been drained too far --- I don't know if promariner does that or not. If so, charging the dead battery with a different charger and then putting it back on your on-board charger is a good way to jump-start it into working again. But in that case it is likely to be a bad battery if the voltage drops that low.

[Hoffer]

I kind of did a little test tonight. I took my brand new deep cycle which had been hooked up and fully charged and ran the troller on it for just a few minutes. It must have been enough to drain it a little - cause when I plugged in the charger the one light turned green, then the red charging light came on. It didnt stay on for long though...I checked it like 20 minutes later and the red charging light was already off - and the green light was blinking. if its charged..is the green light just supposed to blink?

So...it appears the charger is working OK...and I possibly am trying to charge some bad batteries and the on board charger wont take them. I am going to try and charge up one of the batteries on my regular car charger and see if i can get a good enough charge to make the on board charger finish it. I am simply looking to find a decent 2nd troller battery to pu up front for a trip to canada next week. just want to make sure I have something extra in the boat in case my good batery runs all the way down and I still have fishing light left.

[Dave]

The "Smart Charger" I have wouldn't charge a battery once. It was stone dead. I charged it from my truck for awhile and then reconnected the Smart Charger and it worked. Maybe using the regular charger like you're doing will work for ya or try a higher current charge like a vehicle for awhile.

[Hoffer]

well...heres an update. Charged the dead battery on the regular charger on a low 2 amp charge this afternoon. hooked it back up to the on board charger and got the red charging light to come on..so its getting a charge. Cool. At least the way mine works - it must not be able to charge a battery thats very, very drained. At least now I know.

[Northlander]

Im guessing your battery is going bad if your on board charger cant bring it back to life. Im also guessing the green light should be steady when battery is fully charged. At least thats how mine is. When my on board blinks red thats a bad connection. When I got 2 new batteries the other day that blinking red went away.

[Hoffer]

Northlander...your right. I think the battery is one step away from having to be recycled. I am just hoping to get one more trip out of it so I have an extra battery for a few hours of trolling time.

I am not good at figuring out electrical stuff...so thats whats frustrating...when these things happen - I dont know if its an issue with my equipment or the batteries etc...

These posts are helpful - and have helped me out many times!

[Northlander]

I just went through this too. I brang my Batteries to Interstate and they checked them under a load and I found they were shot. 2 new batteries and Im good to go again.