On board charger

[striperday]

I have a three (3) bank on board charger. I have a 24 volt trolling motor which takes two banks. I also have selector battery switch in the back with two starting batteries. Is there a way to wire the other bank to charge both batteries or should I just charge one and rely on the motor to charge the other?

[cagrove]

In order to charge them both you would have to bypass or remove the selector switch and hook your batteries together in parallel. (Postive to Positve and Negative to Negative) Then just hook the one bank from your charger to ONE battery and the other will charge right along with it. (Your motor will also maintain them both when it's running. (CAUTION: Do not hook them up in series(Pos to Neg) as you will then have a 24 volt system)

Another option would be to just hook them together when you want to charge them and disconnect them when you're ready to go on the water.

If it were me, I think I would hook up the third bank to the spare battery and let the motor take care of the primary battery. If the primary dies, just flip the switch and you've got a fresh battery ready to go.

I hope this helped.

[PileDriver]

One additional option is if your battery switch has a "Both" position. If so, place the lead from the charger bank on the out position of the switch. So when you have the switch in the "Both" position you will be charging each battery at the same time. This is how I have set my system up. However, with that said, if you use one battery more then the other, it is wise to select each battery one at a time with the switch to charge them. After they have recieved their independent charges you can maintain them together.