[C320-list] Battery Charger

[Warren Updike]

My Xantrex True Charge 2, 40A, bought 11/2010.  It had threaded posts for ring terminals.  Perhaps they changed along the line.  

The deal I got at HodgesMarine.com was the charger, remote panel, and temp sensor.  When a post broke and Xantrex agreed to replace it, they told me that it would take about a month as they had none in stock.  What!! the mfgr had none in stock?  Even Hodges didn't have any.  Apparently, what happened was Xantrex was in the process of switching to a newer True Charge 2 model (supports two chargers in combination,) and was waiting for a shipment.  I got the "deal" on the older model that Xantrex couldn't replace.  They replaced it with the newer model.  My good!

FYI With batteries down about 20% (80A) the 40A charger will bring them back to about 90% in 2-3 hours; but, it takes another 4-5 hours to get to full.  That's why my batteries died earlier on the old ferro-resonant 2-stage because they were never fully charged, and were always being charged when plugged in.  

In summary, I would say that the Xantrex technology is very good; but, the construction is not as good, perhaps a marketing decision rather than an engineering decision, so to achieve a price advantage over competition.  Perhaps the marketing guys are power boaters and the engineers are sailors.

Warren & Pattie Updike
1994 C320 #62 "Warr De Mar"

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Hare [mailto:catalina at thehares.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2013 12:19 PM
To: C320-List at Catalina320.com
Subject: Re: [C320-list] Battery Charger

Since the boat has ~350AH worth of batteries, the 40A is a much better charger size.  During charge operations it'll much spend less time being "maxed out" which is a little harder on the internal components.  The fusing is probably just fine since the inline fuses would be set up for protecting against a major short, not for protecting the charger.  The wires are quite heavy and can handle the large charge currents with very little voltage drop (which is the goal in charging circuits).

With that said, we keep our boat on the dock plugged in all the time also, so really it spends most of its time in float but occasionally switching to absorption modes since we have the fridge running most of the time. 

The drawback of Xantrex *in my opinion* is that they have poor DC power cable connectors.  While most chargers like ProMariner, Charles, etc. use studs with nuts/washers that take ring terminals for a secure connection,   Xantrex uses molex (I think) connectors that you stick bare wire in and tighten a screw.   So, you'll have to either use a terminal block or cut off the factory ring terminals (bad idea!).  It used to be that the diameter of wire they accept was smaller than the size that Catalina uses for battery charging cables so you'd have to trim off strands down to about an 8AWG size before it would fit.  Even if they finally increased the size of these connectors, it's a fragile connection living in storage locker where stuff can bounce around or slide up to the charger.  I'd prefer solid connections that can't be pulled out.  But this is a commentary on the installation and suitability, not the quality of the charging product which from what I can tell is on par with the rest of the field.  

The best way to install the xantrex is to leave the ring terminals on and use a covered terminal block to transition from ring terminals to non-terminated wires that actually plug into the charger.  Then when this charger dies and you get a charger that has proper terminals again, you won't need to install heavy lug ring terminals that you previously cut off.  :)

So... Go with a 40A charger.  If it's a 2 battery charger, then it's really 20A per leg.  If it's a 3 battery charger then it's about 13A/battery.  The stock battery was a ProMariner flyback 30 or something that was really 10A/leg X 3.

Cheers!
-Jeff



-----Original Message-----
From: c320-list-bounces at lists.catalina320.com [mailto:c320-list-bounces at lists.catalina320.com] On Behalf Of katchu at chartermi.net
Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2013 8:53 PM
To: c320-list at lists.catalina320.com
Subject: [C320-list] Battery Charger






Thanks Jeff:

My Charles charger is a 20 amp unit.  I don’t think that I want the 40 amp, as I am at a dock and the boat is plugged in almost all the time.  I think that a 40A might require new fusing too, but I can’t find any fusing in the existing battery circuit.  This failure was just like the last one in that there was suddenly no DC power to either bank.  I checked the internal DC fuse, and it is OK.  The internal AC fuse does not appear to be user replaceable

I like the control panel and the temperature compensation on the Xantrex, but the ugly reviews on the WM site raised a red flag, so thought that I might run it by the group.  This group has been very positive on Xantrex, so I was surprised by the reviews.  In any case, I’m pulling my boat this week, so I have some time to think this over.


Chuck Mueller

Northwind #676

Holland, MI
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2013 11:57:41 -0400
From: "Jeff Hare" <catalina at thehares.com>
To: <C320-List at Catalina320.com>
Subject: Re: [C320-list] Battery charger
Message-ID: <01a001ceb3be$a4cefdb0$ee6cf910$@thehares.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

Out of curiosity which Charles charger do you have?  How many amps?

The old flyback promariners seemed to not last too long.  Ours lasted 7 years.  Many owners replaced that with a Xantrex charger (accepting the crappy connectors on the Xantrex) and were all very happy... until those also started showing the same failures after years in service.  We replaced our ProMariner with a Charles 40 and while it's going on 6 years now I expect to have to replace it within a few years.

Others have used IOTA and Freedom, etc.  My guess is that if you had a way of really looking at the statistics, there's no good answer.  By the time you figure out which charger last the longest, you can't actually get that charger any more.  While you can decide which chargers to avoid based on early failures, I doubt you can do any better than that.

So, when I need to replace mine, I'm going to see if the current breed of Charles chargers is getting a bad rap or not.  If not, I'll get a new one (knowing that it's not at all the same internal design or build as the one I'm replacing).  If ProMariner isn't getting a bad rap, I might look at those also.  It'll come down to warranty, reputation on the actual version of the charger I'm buying.

My $.02

Cheers!
-Jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: c320-list-bounces at lists.catalina320.com [mailto:c320-list-bounces at lists.catalina320.com] On Behalf Of katchu at chartermi.net
Sent: Monday, September 16, 2013 2:55 PM
To: c320-list at lists.catalina320.com
Subject: [C320-list] Battery charger

My Charles battery charger appears to have died again.  It was on the boat when I bought it seven years ago, and I had Charles recondition it for $85 about three years ago when it died.  I recall that many of you switched to Xantrex and were really happy.  But the reviews in the WM website are very bad with multiple early failures.  Has anyone had any recent experience, good or bad?

Thanks

Chuck Mueller

Northwind #676

Holland, MI