Mounting onboard charger?

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

Mounting a charger in my boat, but instructions say not to mount it to carpet, or vinyl. As you can see, my compartment is covered with vinyl. Should I space it away from the mount area with some spacers?

[jac714]

I think i would, they give off a decent amount of heat and it needs to dissipate.

[CAMAN]

Or you could cut out the vinyl behind the charger and mount it directly to the aluminum. Which is what I would probably do, the aluminum will help suck the heat from the unit faster than the air would and could help protect the unit from overheating.

[grizrunner]

Probably wouldn't hurt to use a few washers to space it from the surface as it will get warm, but melt your vinyl I doubt it. Would be even more beneficial when mounting on carpet. Most likely a legal disclaimer from the mfg. If it would get that hot they couldn't sell them.

Looks like you have plenty of room to let it breathe. Just because you have that extra cu/ft of space in front of it, don't store cushions/jackets/etc to smother the charger/batteries. I also keep my hatch open when charging to help keep it cooler, although I've never had mine so hot to make me concerned. Maybe check yours out first to see how warm it actually gets(against solid surface w/o spacers).

[Moose-Hunter]

For sure space it out from your mounting surface. The whole case of your charger is a heat sink. The more surface area you have exposed, the more air circulation you have and the more heat you can dissipate from the charger. Heat is the killer of electronics. Less heat = longer life.

I have my big MinnKota 3 bank mounted to two lengths of 1" square aluminum tubing. I have the square tubes mounted to the bulkhead and the charger mounted to the tube. It was a major PITA mounting it that way but I'm assured of all surfaces, even the bottom, being exposed to the air.

I may even install a small 12V thermo activated fan for forced convection... Just in case.

[BobT]

Most likely a legal disclaimer from the mfg. If it would get that hot they couldn't sell them.

Don't kid yourself. Under the right conditions it just could get hot enough to present a problem. It may not start a fire but it could discolor the vinyl and my guess is we'd be in their face in a heartbeat complaining they should have told us not to mount it on the vinyl. Specifications are there for a reason. Pay attention to them.

We build industrial packaging equipment and we often install air conditioning units or cooling fans on the electrical cabinets of the machine. You'd be surprised at how many times we simply solve problems by cleaning the filters on those cooling systems not to mention the number of AC units that no longer work because they failed to keep the filters clean.

Just recently we sent a service tech to troubleshoot the servo drive system on a machine in Oklahoma. He discovered the AC unit didn't work and the electrical cabinet was so hot he couldn't hold his hand on it for more than a few seconds. He said the temperature in the plant was near 100 degrees F. and he couldn't begin to guess what it might have been inside that enclosure. We specify the use of the AC for a reason, not to just add cost. In this case, the excessive heat damaged the servo drives costing this customer over $50,000.00 in parts plus airfare, room, board, and service rate to isolate and fix their machine. The funny thing thing is, they still haven't repaired the AC unit.

[FM_Mike]

I went to a local hardware store and bought some nylon washers. They worked great to give the charger some room to breathe.

Mike

[jeffreyd]

get a computer fan to hook up to blow air across it to help dissipate the heat. you can set the fan to come on when the charger is hooked up. I would space it away not only to allow the heat move away but if it got warm enough it might discolor the outside of the boat too. good luck