Ann-Marie

Those chargers don't draw much power - any extension cord will do fine. They are intended primarily for maintaining a charge on batteries. Don't expect them to re-charge a depleted battery unless you don't mind waiting a week.

I've been using 3 of those chargers from WalMart 24/7 for a few years now maintaining UPS supplies on equipment, one where it gets quite hot although not "sunlight" hot and I've not had any problems. It sounds like you got a faulty one. I've been very happy with mine and like the digital voltage read-out. But the warning is well taken - if you need to run any charger where it gets hot, test in time to be able to return it.

So long as the batteries are adjacent, only one circuit breaker is necessary. If they were separated by some significant distance on a metal boat where there is some risk of mechanical trauma to the cables, you might want to install a breaker on each one but it would be rare.

I have three installations using that Schumacher charger that have been on constantly now for many years maintaining deep cycle UPS backup batteries. The batteries have required no maintenance at all.

FWIW, in the days when I was trailering (sail boat) I mounted my lights and license plate on a 2x4 with a flexible cord that reached the outlet on the tow vehicle. I mounted a gudgeon pin on it that fit the rudder socket and you may have to be inventive here to make a mounting that is quick and easy for your boat construction. When I got to the ramp I took it off and put it in the back of the truck so there was NO electrical equipment on the trailer as it went in the water. When you load back on the trailer, hang the lights and plug them in.

However for fresh water they are often made of Magnesium to give a higher protection voltage to push through the fresh water which has a higher resistance. But they are not called Mags ;D, they are called Magnesium Zincs which is really scary.

Why on Earth (why on water ) would you leave the motor in the water when not in use, fresh or salt water? Don't invite trouble for the anodes to fix, just avoid it. With the metal out of the water you have broken the electrical (electrolysis) circuit so nothing to protect. And trailered boats spend so little time in the water it is hardly a concern either way.

Sulfating of batteries is typically a symptom of sitting for extended periods in a discharged state. If you are using the batteries on a regular basis and charge ASAP after use, I doubt that you have a sulfating problem.

You don't have to match the batteries when used like this in parallel. Batteries only have to be matched when in series to make 24 or 36 volts. My preference has always been to use both batteries in parallel - that way you minimize the depth of discharge. You don't have to decide when you are half way through the day's fishing and switch to the other. However it was pointed out to me that if you use one at a time, then you KNOW when you have used half the available power and don't get caught with two dead batteries.

I had that problem some years ago and after agonizing over cooling, replacing the impeller, flushing it out the buzzer still went off. I finally decided it was the thermostat itself so I disconnected it. (There was no source for a replacement within range.) Then with a little procrastination added it ran for about 8 years like that. That procrastination is great stuff but use it carefully.

Long Mike is correct. The quickest way to kill a battery is over discharge. As the remaining charge gets lower, the effect on shortening life gets higher. For maximum life you shouldn't discharge below 50%. Discharging to 25% may reduce your battery life by (I'm guessing) 30% from maximum. But for each 5% below that you are reducing life by larger and larger amounts. Finally at total discharge, the level of damage skyrockets because at those levels you end up with "cell reversal". That happens when the internal resistance of the weakest cell becomes higher than the internal resistance of the trolling motor. To the cells in series and the overall circuit, the trolling motor now looks like another jumper from positive to negative like all the other jumpers in the ring and the weak cell becomes the "load" or substitutes for the motor. So now for that cell in the series chain, it has + on its negative terminal and - on its positive terminal causing rapid internal damage. This reverse voltage would be about 10 volts for a 12 volt motor but will be 20 or 30 volts for 24 and 36 volt motors so the latter motors are much more likely to kill a battery in a few seconds at total discharge than a 12 volt system. Our Trollbridge36 has a battery protection feature to save batteries from this failure mode. When it detects the voltage getting to this danger level it will switch from 36 to 12 volts, putting the batteries in parallel to save the weakest cell from damage. If you "ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO RUN THE MOTOR" you can override this and switch back to 36 volts at your own risk.

Put a volt meter on the battery and watch the voltage after starting. It will drop a little while starting but then it should rapidly get above 13 volts if you have an alternator. If it stays below 12.8 volts you don't, or it is not working.

The wire you use should be stranded and have the individual strands tinned = look silvery, not like copper. You should get wire with insulation rated for 105 degrees C to minimize the chance of melting if it gets overloaded and hot.

Anne may have more up to date information but this is the way I understand it. Charge is measured in amp-hours. If you have more amps it will take fewer hours to charge and vice-versa. When you are discharging a battery, the total energy you get from it in amp-hours is the same but you lose voltage in the battery and the amount of loss increases with current. So batteries are less "efficient" or have a lower reserve as you draw higher currents. In theory the amp-hours in/out have to be identical but due to irregularities in the uniformity of the plates and electrolyte the capacity will diminish over life as some areas of the battery tend to take more load and other areas get underused. This also applies to charging - the energy it takes to recharge at a high current will be greater due to heating and chemistry losses in the battery. The difference, however, is discharge amp-hours are precious while charging amp-hours are cheap and plentiful. Older style lead-acid batteries used to benefit from an occasional fast charge and even an overcharge to stir up and de-stratify the liquid electrolyte however I don't think that applies to modern batteries.

I've had no more problems with WalMart batteries than any other however it was my understanding that this is a starting battery, not a deep cycle suitable for trolling motors. Starting batteries are designed to give a high current, eg. 1000 amps for a short time. For trolling you don't need more than 50 amps but you need thick plates to hold up for a long time. If it appears to be well discharged, use the 6 amp setting but it does depend on what kind of a charger you have. It may need to be switched to a lower setting after being on charge for 24 hours if it is a "less intelligent" or older style charger.

It may be helpful to advertisers here to get reader's opinions of their reaction to certain banners that I personally find objectionable but perhaps they are effective?

If you are not concerned with topping off the starting battery just hook each of the dual charger outputs to each of the trolling batteries. The circuit you sketched won't work unless you have a 24 volt charger because you are charging a 24 volt battery with a 12 volt charger. Your circuit should show two more charging leads going to the jumper between the batteries

NO. In your example on the 120/220V AC, they cost nearly the same because you are paying the power company for WATT-HOURS, not AMP-HOURS. The current will be 1/2 but the voltage is twice and when you multiply to get watts it is the same amount. I think that the original question was about EFFICIENCY not current. For the same power a 24 volt is twice the voltage but half the current so again the amount of power used is theoretically the same. So why put two batteries in series to run a 24 volt motor instead of the same two batteries in parallel running a 12 volt motor. Theoretically it is the same amount of power WATTS or amp-hours battery capacity (1/2 current x twice the voltage). The reason is wire gauge and thermal losses. If you are losing 2 volts in all the wiring, including the wiring INSIDE the coils in the motor, then on a 12 volt battery you are getting only 10 volts doing work for an efficiency of 10/12 or 83%. If you lose 2 volts on a 24 volt battery your efficiency goes up to 22/24 = 92% efficiency. The magnetic force in the motor windings is measured in amp-turns. That is the current flowing through multiplied by the number of loops of wire in the coil. But the space in the motor cavities to hold the wire is more or less constant. Since you can use smaller wire on a 24 volt motor you can get more turns of wire on the coils and increase the magnetic pull more than the reduction of current for 24 volts.

Keep in mind that the moisture detector deteriorates and requires replacing every 12 months. I made the mistake of storing one in a drawer and not maintaining it so eventually humidity did its job and it went off in the drawer. Cracked the bottom and jammed it shut. The other conclusion to draw was that I found it too clumsy and inconvenient to wear except under extreme conditions - otherwise it wouldn't have spent all that time in the drawer.

You can't get blood from a stone. Your trolling speed and time is primarily a function of total battery capacity and secondly a function of the motor efficiency. While modern motors are better designed and more efficient than older ones we are not talking big numbers. And while 24 volts, or 36 volts yields more efficient motors, again we are talking incremental percentages. All these factors combined are not going to increase the efficiency by more that 50% which is what you would need before you can eliminate a battery to get the SAME trolling speed/time. If your present battery capacity is doing the job then an efficient motor will do it a little better but you will still need the batteries. If your present batteries are inadequate, then $$$ spent on more efficient motors will help a little but not dramatically and certainly not enough to allow eliminating batteries. Depending on your trolling/motoring ratio, a charger for the 12, 24 or 36 voltage trolling battery that works off the 12 volt alternator in your outboard is the best way of extending trolling time. Many of our customers report returning to the trailer with a fully charged trolling battery, ready to go again the next day with no overnight charging. This is the most economical way to get the best return on your dollar for extending trolling capacity.

If you are talking about the "wally world" battery charger about that price with the LED voltage read-out I've found it to be an excellent charger. It has modern computer control for multi stage charging, a digital read-out that gives you constant feed back on the charge state and can be left on permanently with no gassing problems.

That rule applies to ALL outboards with alternators, not just fuel injected (although there are more things to be killed on a fuel injected). Disconnecting the battery load when the engine is running is an easy way to damage the rectifiers in your alternator. In both cases, the installation of a "Zap Stop" can provide some measure of protection against accidents. They are not very expensive and good insurance.

This is totally wrong. Always charge the batteries ASAP.

Keep in mind that if a circuit breaker won't reset, the short or overload that caused it to trip may still be present. This would prevent you resetting it. Take one of the leads off it and then try resetting, if it works now you have a short or overload somewhere in the circuit.

Some good news and some bad. We finally got a date on when the computer chips will be available for the Trollbridge36, the bad news is the 1/3/07 date (that they didn't tell me about) has been extended until 4/11/07. We are going ahead with volume production but by the time we put the final chip on, do the epoxy, and add at least some field trials it looks like the end of April before we will have stock available. This is a new chip that combines functions that used to be handled by separate chips. It makes intelligent controls more economical and many of our products will change over to it for new production runs.