The boat I'm acquiring has one battery at present (not sure whether its 80Ah or 110Ah. I'm not intending to fit an invertor or any additional heavyweight 12v devices but I would like to fit an onboard battery charger so that when I'm onboard at the marine I can keep the charge topped up.
Done some "googling" and the prices seen to vary dramatically. It does seem that a 3-stage would be suitable and Amperor do a 25Amp unit for around the £80 mark. I'd plan to use a 240V powerline plugged from the shore into a socket mounted on the cockpit/rear cabin bulkhead. From there, the 240v supply would feed either an MCB or RCD/MCB (whichever is more correct) with captive wiring to the charger . The latter would be mounted as close to the battery as possible allowing adequate ventilation but with the shortest 12v leads possible with the latter fused 50A/60A in the to the positive battery terminal. The 12v wiring in the correct gauge will be fused 50A/60A to the positive terminal.
The existing battery circuits for the lights, etc, will be kept "as is" through the existing battery isolation switch.
That's a nice piece of kit and will maintain a reasonably well charged battery brilliantly.
There is no max current shown on the site, but as it is designed for small motorbike batteries I guess it is quite low. This would not recharge a fully depleted leisure battery in any reasonable time.
Onboard battery charger - any thoughts?
Posted - 05 Sep 2011 : 08:33:15
