Old one bit the dust.... how about some suggestions for a new one. It will probably be used 90% of the time just for the boat. At this point I only have a single battery. The old charger was about 25 years old and very "vanilla".

I have this one from Black and Decker. It's a smart charger, which beats my older one which was manual. You can set it for 10 amps to get a dead battery startable pretty quickly, or set it at 2 amps to trickle charge. Either way, when the battery is full it backs down.

Mine has the smaller clips, and I picked it up on clearance for maybe 20 bucks. I've been very happy with it.

I've had good luck with the Sears 2/10/50 amp chargers.

Jim698,

Might you be looking at a permanent onboard charger? That would definitely change the responses.

Even if you were not considering one, you should. They are really nice to have. My Guest, on-board, automatic, dual 10 amp charger has worked flawlessly for going on 11 years (assuming the PO never rpelaced it). I love the ease of use. That said, I already own a 2-10-50 charger, and a "battery tender" type charger, so I don't need the boat charger to do any other duties.

I would guess it all depends on what kind of functions/features you want. I have had great success with products by "Battery Tender" http://www.batterytender.com/ . I have their Battery Tender Jr. and the Battery Tender Plus 12V @ 1.25A. They were given as X-mas presents and have preformed flawlessly for the last 5 years. The Jr is used for my motorcycle and the Plus is used for everything else. Plug them in and forget about it!

Thanks for all the responses. I never considered an onboard version. I guess I just figured that was more for the larger vessels that are kept in a slip rather than my little 18 footer that lives in the driveway. However, it sure would be convenient to simply plug it in and not worry about it. What type of connections do they normally have?

Usually + & -


Sorry, I couldn't help it.

I added a Guest Procharger and a switch to my boat's electrical system 2 years ago. The hardest part of the install was fitting my cordless drill under the coaming on the gunnel when I was mounting the charger. The charger, at least, the one I have, has 2 cords coming out the bottom. One of them has a standard 110V 3-prong plug on the end, which I connect to a heavy-duty extension cord and plug into a wall outlet in my garage. The other cord has 2 wires in it, which have ring connectors on the ends that fit over the battery terminals. It's really very easy to deal with. Connect those wires to the battery and plug in the charger and you're done.

I also added a switch to have a convenient way to isolate the battery from the rest of the boat when I am not using it. For me, this is a very significant amount of time. It's much easier to turn the switch than to fiddle around with nuts and a wrench in the small battery compartment.

I snagged this Minn Kota 1 bank (e.g. single battery) charger from Walmart a few years ago.

http://www.minnkotamotors.com/products/battery_chargers/on_board_chargers/mk106_1bank.aspx

Mounted it on the engine cover with a loomed connection down to the battery. It has ring terminals to connect to the wing nut terminals or main battery cable clamp nuts. I ran the 120v plug out the back vent area of the cover, so it's accessible peeking out outside near the swim platform area. Every couple of weeks or so, I run a quick extension from by garage to charge.

Works great.

If I've only got one battery charger, it's got to be portable. If I was buying a second charger for the boat, then the installed version makes a lot of sense.

I use mine for the boat, lawn tractor and 2 cars. This summer it will also be used on a camper battery while we're dry camping at Yellowstone.