36 volt charging for big Min Kotta

[kc]

I know lots of people will be having issues with charging the 3 battery bank system. I have mine with an Anderson plus near the motor and an anderson plug on a large and expensive 12/24/36/48 volt charger. I have been just unplugging the motor and plugging in the charger to feed 36 volts at 30 amps back down the line. The charger itself is problematic and despite new wiring and new batteries often gets a false read on the voltage in the line and goes to error code. It is a fairly long run of wire. Maybe 15 feet and if the charger picks up any voltage drop just won't work. I have seen on line the 12 volt dc to 36 volt chargers which can be hard wired in to provide 10 amps of trickle charge off the outboards alternator. Question!! If I buy a 240 Volt ac to 12 volt DC invertor could this also be hard wired inline to provide trickle charge to the batteries? It is a pain in the bum having to pull up the floor, disconnect the batteries and charge them 1 at a time.

[TheRealAndy]

Does the charger only fail when you plug it in via the motor cable? IF so, is there any reason you cant just add a second anderson closer to the battery bank specifically for charging? Some good quality chargers sense the voltage drop on their cables, so this may be the problem.

[Fed]

Moving or fitting additional charging socket closer to the batteries will make it worse.

You have too much load for the charger so it's protesting.
The overload may be caused by 3 very flat batteries that the charger doesn't have enough grunt to charge from flat or you may have a battery failing.
What charger is it kc, not a constant current charger as that's a whole new ballgame.

[kc]

Hard to know what is going on. Even after charging batteries to full with 12 volt charging on individual isolated batteries the big Matson charger still goes to error code. Have had the charger back to dealer and it all tested OK and also use the same system on my bara boat and the Matson on 12 volt setting worked fine. All batteries tested with multi meter and are new. Brings me back to my orginal question. Will a 12 volt DC to 36 volt system work with feed from a 240 volt AC to 12 Volt Dc (at 10 amps)?

[rayken1938]

In theory the 12 to 36v charger should work as long as it has smart charger capability so that it will fully charge the 36v bank without overcharging. It will suck a lot of amps out of your 12v battery ( Over 36 amps )
My thoughts lean towards the matson.
If there was a high resistance joint in the 36v supply to the minnkota I would surmise that the minnkota would play up.
Try touching every battery terminal and join in the cableing and the plug for the minnkota and see if there are any warmth in the joins.
I would then suggest that you write to matson with full explanation of the problem as they may not have checked the charger under actual working conditions and merely checked the output of the charger under no load conditions.
Dont suppose that a local battery shop could hook 3 batteries up to make 36v and check the charger on them
Cheers
Ray

[Fed]

Good point rayken, can't assume the charger is 100%.

If I buy a 240 Volt ac to 12 volt DC invertor

Not sure what that's about kc, inverters turn DC into AC, do you have a link?

[scottar]

Hard to know what is going on. Even after charging batteries to full with 12 volt charging on individual isolated batteries the big Matson charger still goes to error code. Have had the charger back to dealer and it all tested OK and also use the same system on my bara boat and the Matson on 12 volt setting worked fine. All batteries tested with multi meter and are new. Brings me back to my orginal question. Will a 12 volt DC to 36 volt system work with feed from a 240 volt AC to 12 Volt Dc (at 10 amps)?

Depends on whether it has the smarts to go to maintenance mode when everything is fully charged - assuming you are going to leave it on full time. Apart from that it should be fine. Easiest way to check all your cabling would be to connect the minn kota up and check the voltage at the anderson connector with the minn kota going flat out - this should show up any voltage drop pretty quick smart.

[scottar]

Moving or fitting additional charging socket closer to the batteries will make it worse.

You have too much load for the charger so it's protesting.
The overload may be caused by 3 very flat batteries that the charger doesn't have enough grunt to charge from flat or you may have a battery failing.
What charger is it kc, not a constant current charger as that's a whole new ballgame.

Not sure it will too much load so much as a reduced voltage and not accepting current - thus the charger is "assuming" a faulty battery bank. The small C-Tek and similar chargers do the same thing when the terminals in the inline connector start to give a suspect connection -only difference here is there are a lot of connections. Other option as mentioned is the charger has an issue.

[Fed]

Not sure it will too much load so much as a reduced voltage and not accepting current - thus the charger is "assuming" a faulty battery bank. The small C-Tek and similar chargers do the same thing when the terminals in the inline connector start to give a suspect connection -only difference here is there are a lot of connections.

I have NFI WTF that means scottar.

[scottar]

The chargers will have a set of parameters in their programming to "diagnose" a faulty battery / battery bank.Apart from an outright too low of a voltage, It will "know" that with a battery at voltage "X", the current from it's input should be "Y". When it's not - because of resistance in it's wiring (too long or light weight charge cable or a bad connection) or a faulty battery, the charger goes to a fault condition.

[Greg P]

Be better to buy an onboard 3 bank charger (10/20 amp). I was using a cetek 24v back through the main Anderson plug but the ProMariner charger I bought is fantastic. I’ve got a two bank 12 amp and it is great. Permanently wired to batteries, just plug in the 240v power

http://www.promariner.com/en/product.../prosport/gen3

[TheRealAndy]

Moving or fitting additional charging socket closer to the batteries will make it worse.

You have too much load for the charger so it's protesting.
The overload may be caused by 3 very flat batteries that the charger doesn't have enough grunt to charge from flat or you may have a battery failing.
What charger is it kc, not a constant current charger as that's a whole new ballgame.

Wow, so much bullshit posted in this place. Dont know why I even bother typing up a post. Try reading the original post champ, you may learn a thing or 2.

[Fed]

Is this the charger in question kc, if so what code are you getting (page 4)?
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/12...ne.html#manual

[Fed]

The chargers will have a set of parameters in their programming to "diagnose" a faulty battery / battery bank.Apart from an outright too low of a voltage, It will "know" that with a battery at voltage "X", the current from it's input should be "Y". When it's not - because of resistance in it's wiring (too long or light weight charge cable or a bad connection) or a faulty battery, the charger goes to a fault condition.

Added resistance will only cause the battery charger to see the batteries as being more charged than what they really are. Added resistance won't overload the charger.

I did notice in the manual they say to 'hot' connect the battery after the charger has been turned on & the voltage has been set so that would mean the charger doesn't remember it's previous setting & defaults to ? (probably 12 V) when turned on, quite the opposite sequence to how we would normally connect a charger.
Connecting the battery before connecting the mains could be giving the charger a head spin.

[Fed]

Wow, so much bullshit posted in this place. Dont know why I even bother typing up a post. Try reading the original post champ, you may learn a thing or 2.

TheRealAndy <IGNORED>