Onboard Battery Charger

[Finbreaker]

Howdy, I recently purchased a 2008 2320 SL.... My first boat, and I am slowly learning about the internals of the boat. This boat came with a Guest Onboard Battery Charger mounted near my two batteries in the bilge compartment and I have no idea how it works. Does this thing automatically charge the batteries when I am running the boat or am I supposed to plug in the charger at night when everything is off? The MarinCo website has an instruction manual but I guess it assumes that you know how to use this charger in the first place! Thanks!

 

[sam3]

pretty shore you plug it in do you have shore power It may be wired to that if not look for a plug

 

[warthog5]

The alt. on your motor charges the batteries while motor is running.

Onboard chargers are for when the boat is at the house. This is to bring the batteries back to Full charge and maintain that.

Now .....let me give you the bad part. Onboard chargers are known to be defective. Either they don't charge enough or even worse Overcharge the batteries. I've had a 3 bank Guest in the past that took 3 chargers to get one good one out of the box.

You plug it in and check the output at the battery connections with a VOM. Overcharging can shorten the battery life by boiling the water out of it and even causing the battery to Blow up.