Guest battery charger

[Gregg]

Hello Everyone,
I have a 2008 R21ec with the Guest 6 amp charger wired to the house battery when on power at the slip. I usually leave it plugged in at the slip for a most times I'm away. So I notcied the other day that the house battery was very hot and so was the charger. As it turned out, the house battery was cooked. I replaced the house battery and everything seems to be now behaving normally again. My suspicion is that the Guest charger has been overcharging (or incorrectly charging) that battery to point that it finally failed. Has anyone else had a similar experience? The battery was relatively new, (about a year old) and I generally put light loads on the house battery when in use (mainly just electonics). Does anyone have a charger that thev've had a good history with and can recommend?

Thanks,

Gregg

 

[Levitation]

I generally do not trust the usual chargers that are supposed to switch to trickle... What I do on the farm is have a bunch of battery maintainers for the multitude of batteries here... These put out 12.7 volts, the resting voltage of a charged battery... For storage the batteries are given an equalizing charge then the charger is removed and the maintainer is put on... This is how we handle the tractors, etc. over the winter.. Any continuous voltage higher than 12.7 will eventually cook a battery...

 

[Ram]

I've had a ProMariner charger on my other boat for several years, running year-round, and it's worked fine. But I haven't had any problems with the Guest charger on my R25 in a year of continuous use. Any electronic component can be defective. It might be worth contacting Guest and explaining what happened to see if they have any advice. It would be a shame to burn up another battery if in fact the charger is defective.

 

[rt11002003]

Ram has good advice.

A couple of years ago the battery charger on my Albin went bad, couldn't keep both batteries charged. It had kept the batteries in good shape for a couple of years; I kept it on 24/7, except when away from the slip. It was hard wired into the shore power system.

I had the yard "take care of the problem"; they rebuilt it. That lasted about three months and burned up both batteries.

Final solution, two new batteries and a new high tech charger. I have one of the multi stage charging units I use on my BMW motorcycle. Again, it's hooked up 24/7, except when I'm riding. Been using them for over five years on motorcycles and have never had a problem. That's saying a lot, BMW motorcycle batteries have always had a very, very short life span.

Gene