very frustrating!! new question now on 2 bank charger

[Hoffer]

So....now I am starting to get everything lined up. Put on my autopilot and get that running on a 24V system.

Then I hook up just one of the batteries to my 2 bank charger. When I left home the green power light was on.

When I came home later tonight - the power light was not on anymore. Do these things cycle on and off with the power on their own? I unplugged it for awhile and then plugged it in again - and no green light. I looked all around and I dont see a fuse etc....I know the power extension cord going in works - cause i connected it to something else and it has power.

So..did it just "[PoorWordUsage] out" all of a sudden when I was gone? or is there something else I am overlooking???

Very frustrating - as soon as I get one thing running - something else goes wrong!!

any help is much appreciated.

[Whoaru99]

Do you have a manual for the charger? What does it say about the indicators?

If you don't have the book, perhaps you can download one from the mfg. HSOforum.

[Hoffer]

no book..I bought the boat used and it was already installed. i will try to look up something from the manufacturer. The weird thing too is that I looked for fuses and didnt see any? This guy ran all the wires under the floorboards. In one way its nice cause everything was out of the way - but now if I really want to try and fix something - it means unscrewing all the floorboards :-(

[croixflats]

I think your charger is ok. I saw this happen a few times with charging. What I believe is happening is at the beginning the charger is charging the top of the battery then registers it as charged then after the initial charge it starts to seep down to the lower part of the cells, kind of like when a lake turns over. Baffled me the first few times I saw this happen.

Oh, for the question to the charger cycling on and off I believe most go into a maintenance mode ounce the batteries are fully charged.

Also I'm not sure if you do this or not its a good idea to unplug the trolling motor just in case so there is no chance of electricity can leak through and fry the circuitry.

[Hoffer]

The thing is...wouldnt the green power light at least be on?

I dont get any lights on at all.

I am going to check with my neighbor tomorrow and see if I can use his volt tester. If I am getting power through to the end of the leads and put on a volt tester - wouldnt that at least register some electric flow?

[croixflats]

You would think there be some lights on.

This is what happend to us over the opener up north. Strange thing. The dual on board charger one side was not charging luckily we brought another charger with. One of those 15 amp schumacher ones with the meter. Odd thing was we could see the meter droping showing it was charging then the dang needle on the meter started going back up to 15 amps. Head scratcher. Left it on over night and it dropped back down to charged with the green light on.Trolling motor worked all day long

I would leave it plugged in to see what happens then tomorrow try the volt tester. Hope you can read one. We had one up there and I forgot how to read one

[Hoffer]

Thanks. Glad to know others have these same issues..doesnt make me feel so jinxed! My neighbor is an electrical engineer and one of those guys that puts a car engine together in his garage. i am hoping to see him later today...and will post if we find something out.

[walleyemaniac]

I have a Promariner Pro Tournament 100 while it's charging the light will be red, when it's at full charge and maintainance charge the light will be green. When it hits full charge it will still keep the batteries topped off for as long as you leave it plugged in without hurting them.

I wrote on that other post as well, but your fuse holders should be at the end of the cords about 4" from your battery hookups. Mine are red fuse holders with the spade style fuses. Hope whoever installed that thing didn't cut the cords for a "costom fit" look. All that stuff probably went in the garbage that being the case.

[jeffreyd]

Q.

How hot is my charger supposed to get?

A.

If it is a waterproof charger (ProTournament, ProSport, ProSport Generation 2, XPS or ProMite), it does not have external fans on it. It dissipates heat through the casing, so it does get warm to the touch. Most often we describe temperature as: you can touch the charger, but you would not want to carry it across the room.

Q.

How do I wire the charger to my 24-volt or 36-volt battery system?

A.

Our waterproof chargers are designed to charge 12-volt batteries within a 12/24/36 volt system. If you have a waterproof battery charger (ProTournament, ProSport, ProSport Generation 2, BassMaster, ProMite or XPS) and you want to connect it to either a 24-volt or 36-volt system, just connect one set of leads (positive and negative) to each battery in the system (the leads are fully isolated from each other). You do not have to disconnect the jumper that connects the positive from one battery to the negative of another battery. The same goes for batteries in a 12-volt system.....just put one set of leads (positive and negative) on each battery. So a 2 bank charger charges 2 batteries, and a 3 bank charger charges 3 batteries.

Q.

Can I connect the charger to only one battery? What do I do with the unused leads or terminals?

A.

If you are using a waterproof charger and want to charge 1 battery on a 2 bank charger, you will need to connect both leads on that one battery. If you are charging 1 or 2 batteries with a 3 bank charger, you will need to connect all the leads on the 1 or 2 batteries. At no time should the charger be run without all the leads being connected to a battery(s).

Q.

Where can I mount the charger?

A.

Make sure you have adequate ventilation for cooling when charging. It can be mounted in any direction; it can even be mounted on the underside of a hatch, or any wall that you have enough room (as long as it is mounted as far as possible from the batteries or fuel tank). Don’t mount them on carpets---if you have no other location, mount it on either a board or with some kind of spacers to lift the charger off of the carpeted area. If the charger is mounted in an enclosed space it is best to open a hatch during the first stage of charging.

Q.

My charger is tripping my GFCI circuit breaker on my outside outlet?

A.

All chargers that use this technology to charge batteries bleed a little voltage on the ground, which should be below the GFCI trip point. Test the charger on a non-GFCI outlet (inside the house) and see if the charger works. If it works, then most likely something is wrong with the GFCI outlet. If it does not work on an inside outlet, then there is something wrong with the charger.

Q.

Can my charger be left on for an extended period of time?

A.

The newer 3-step chargers have a float mode (3rd step) which maintains the batteries at 13.3 volts (for lead-acid batteries) and 13.8 volts (for gel-cell batteries). As long as the batteries are in good condition and you maintain your water levels inside the batteries periodically (for lead-acid batteries), then you can leave the charger on between fishing, boating trips, etc.

Q.

What charger setting do I have to use for AGM batteries?

A.

Most AGM batteries can charge at the lead-acid setting on a battery charger. Our chargers are factory set for lead-acid so you do not have to make any changes to the charger.

Q.

Can I charge a lead-acid battery and a gel-cell battery together?

A.

Our chargers charge and float lead-acid batteries at a different voltage than gel-cell batteries. You should not mix battery types because you are going to compromise a battery if you charge it at the wrong setting.

Q.

What does it mean if I have a blinking light?

A.

If you are getting blinking lights there are two things that could be going on.

1. There could be a problem with your charger.

2. There could be a problem with your batterie(s) (even if they are new).

The first thing to check is to see that the polarity (negative and positive) has not been reversed. If they are set up correct, then disconnect the leads from the batteries and with the end of the leads not touching anything turn the charger on. You should get a solid green light and the output of the charger should be 13.3 volts. If the light(s) still blinks then there is a problem with the charger. If you get a solid green light the next step is to isolate each of the batteries, by doubling up the leads on one of the batteries. Repeat this until you have isolated each of the batteries. If it blinks on all combinations of the batteries, then there is a problem with the charger. If it blinks on one of the batteries, then that battery is the problem.

[Hoffer]

So I think i found the fuses. I was thinking they were on the charger itself - but I found one near the connection to the battery on the bow. That fuse is one of those rounded cylinder shaped ones. That one was fine. So I went back to the transom where the other bank is connected - and there are like 4 fuses back there. I think one is for the charger and the others are for other auxillary stuff. The weird thing is that those are the spade type ones. I checked them all and they were fine.

I also went on line and looked at their troubleshooting page.

I think its toast.

However, I have 2 questions still.

1. Lets say there is still a fuse that I havent found - and lets say its burned out. Wouldnt I still get a green light that says "power". Even if a fuse is burned out I would still think the power light would turn on if in fact its not toast and its getting AC from the plug in.

2. Lets say both of my batteries are just super charged up and good to go. Does the charger ever just not go back "on" and power up?? Maybe internally it recognizes that they are good to go. However, I doubt thats the case. In the troubleshooting guide it says that once they are all charged - the green power light will continue. So...its probably toast - but it still gets me that it was working fine when I left and then 2 hours later it wasnt. I guess maybe it was just time for it to "die" ??

[broken_line]

run your batterys down dead. and let it sit doing what ever blinky hinky it wants to do over night and see if the batteries chaarged any

[Ed Carlson]

What type of batteries do you have in the boat?

AGM's, or conventional wet cell's?

If they are AGM's and very dead, you may need to fool the charge into charging them first before the on board charger will even recognize they are hooked up....as the charger may think they are faulted or no even hooked up. There is a trick to doing this, if that is indeed the case.

This is a recovery method for the do-it-yourselfer using the equipment you've got in the garage. With this option, you're going to trick your charger into charging the deeply discharged AGM battery.

Here's what you need:

* Battery charger

* Jumper cables

* A good battery, preferably above 12.2 volts (It can be an AGM or flooded battery, it doesn't matter.)

* The seemingly dead, deeply discharged AGM battery

* A watch or timer

Now, here's what you do:

1. Hook up the good battery and deeply discharged AGM battery in parallel—positive to positive and negative to negative. Do not have the charger connected to the battery or turned on at this stage.

2. Now, hook up the good battery to the charger. Turn on the charger. The charger will "see" the voltage of the good battery, and start providing a charge.

3. After the batteries have been hooked up for about an hour, check to see if the AGM battery is slightly warm or hot to the touch. Batteries naturally become warm during charging, but excessive heat may be an indication that there really is something wrong with the battery. Also discontinue the process if you hear the battery "gassing"—a hissing sound coming from the safety valves. If it's hot or gassing, STOP CHARGING IMMEDIATELY!

4. Check back every hour to see if the AGM battery has charged to 10.5 volts or above. If it has, disconnect the charger from the wall outlet and remove the good battery from the charger. Now, connect only the deeply discharged AGM battery to the charger. Turn on the charger and continue until the AGM battery reaches a full charge, or until the automatic charger completes the charge process. In most cases, the AGM battery will be recovered.

If they are conventional wet cell batteries and you have power to the charger and it will not output, likely it is an internal charger issue and in need of service.