Shore power not charging batteries

G

GJarrett

Member
Oct 3, 2006
649
Tampa, FL
Boat Info
'02 260 Sundancer
Engines
6.2 MPI
Last weekend, I found out that shore power is not charging my battery. 120v, lights/frig, and A/C converter switchs were all turned on the main panel. While on shore power Friday night, I had the battery switch turned to "2", running air conditioner, frig, and left the engine bilge blower fan on. The air conditioner and frig did fine running on shore power but I guess the engine blower fan is only 12v. Over night at about 3:00am my battery ran down and died. I had to switch to both batteries and start the engine to recharge the #2 battery with the engine alternator. As I stated I did have the A/C convertor switch set to "on" on the main panel. I usually set my battery switch to "both" while on shore power thinking it is charging both batteries; I am really glad I didn't do that this time since I could have ran down both batteries dead.

Why did shore power not keep the battery charged? Looking for direction/steps on diagnosing the problem.
 
The charger should be connected direct to the battery side of the battery switch so the batteries should charge regardless of whether the battery switch is on or not.

If the two battery banks are on separate charger banks you should probably not have the switch set to "both" while charging because one bank may be already charged and may get "cooked" while the dead bank gets charged up. Its possible you have an isolator or something that can prevent that, but who knows.

There may be inline fuses in the wires that run from the charger to the batteries or battery switches. On my boat there were 30A in-line fuses. I replaced my OEM 30A charger with a 40A and it blew the fuses, which caused me some confusion before I realized the problem.
 
Thanks. If my charger is on the battery side of the switch then it may be bad or have a loose/corroded connection. I'll check that out next week.
 
1.) Are there any indicator lights on the charger itself to tell you that it is powered up when you are connected to shore power?
2.) If the charger IS powered up, there may be some internal fuses for each bank. Have you checked those?
3.) What is the name / model of the charger?
 
Your charger has likely blown a fuse internal to the charger OR the fuse/inline breaker going to the battery has blown. Reconfirm your shore power / generator transfer switches are set correctly as well.

I literally had the EXACT same thing happen to me a month ago. I opened the door and went below to turn the breakers on so we could go on the water for the day. As soon as I opened the door, I smelled something funky right away. I looked and saw the carpet was soaked right near the fridge. I opened up the fridge and everything was warm and spoiled. I had my fridge running off the 12v side before I left.

I traced the problem to one of two things...

1. I accidentally didn't change the transfer switch correctly on one of the incoming sides causing only a portion of the panel to go live - the charger being on the side that wasn't turned on. When the battery finally drained to 0V from the fridge, I came down that morning and reconfigured the transfer switches correctly (this is where my memory is fuzzy retracing exact steps), the charger then powers up and sees 0V as reverse polarity and blew the internal fuses.

2. Promariner stated it could have also been a lightning strike which caused the two internal fuses to blow. Ironically the fuel dock which is one dock over did have a lightning strike that weekend and one of the pumps blew up.

As I was checking everything through, I found my charger wasn't even wired with inline fuses/breakers to the batteries. I have already ordered resettable units and will be wiring them in.
 
In the 260DA, if memory serves, the charger can be connected direct to the batteries or through the switch. It depends on the year of the 260DA (made from '99-'04) as some changes were made. The good thing is that this particular model is very user-friendly tracing wires and working in the bilge. It will be easy enough for you to figure it out.

Use a handheld volt meter and check V at batteries with everything turned off. Turn shore power on and the converter/charger... check V again. This will get you moving in the right direction.
 
Thanks for all of the replies/help. I will be at the boat tomorrow to diagnose and hopefully fix the issue. Thanks again!
 
Dangit I can't find my voltmeter; guess I'll have to buy a new one. In the meantime I checked a little bit today. The charger has a meter and is showing that it is not charging while on shore power. I don't see any inline fuse so maybe it has an internal one but I don't see how to remove/unbolt/unscrew the cover from the charger to look for an internal fuse. I am attaching a photo in case someone is familiar with this particular model of charger and can provide more insight. How do I open this thing up? I am aware that I still need to get a voltmeter to make sure the charger is getting juice; I'll have that next weekend.
Charger.jpg
 
That's an amp meter - different than a volt meter. The lower the needle, the closer to fully charged the batteries are (basically). However, IIRC, there should be a red LED when it's charging full bore, then it switches to green when it's in maintenance mode. Do either of those things happen? There would have been an owner's manual for this in the original onwer's pack - do you have it? If not, you can probably Google and find it (not sure if Pro Mariner has it on their website?). You can double check me on the operation and see if there's anything else about it in the manual.

On the other hand... it's had a good life. It might be time for a new one - get the ProNautic series. Sometimes when battery chargers start dying, they can cook your batteries and then you also have to buy new batteries along with the charger.
 
Agree with Lazy Daze suggestion on getting a new ProNautic series.
The 1220 should be an equivalent to the power draw your old unit is taking when it works.
I made the error of going up to a 1230 ( 30 amp model ). When my batteries were low, it would trip the AC breaker when I plugged back into shore power. Fortunately, you can adjust the output of these chargers to 80% / 70% etc.. which saved me from running a larger wire and new breaker from the AC panel. So basically I made it a 20 instead of what I paid for, a 30 amp charger...
 
Don't confuse the DC amp output of a charger with the AC amp input requirement. The AC amperage draw of a 30 amp (DC) charger is less than 4 amps and should not be causing AC circuit breakers to open. If your AC breaker is opening due to the draw of a 30 amp charger, I would ensure that the breaker is sized appropriately for the charger (probably should be 10A). The breaker could also need replacing.
 
I did find my manual and it does state their is a red/green LED indicator which must be the little circle to the right of the "up to 480 amps hours per day" signage on the front. It does not light which means I need to track why the unit is not getting power next time I'm on the boat. Could be a simple bad connection or blown fuse as per prior post suggestions. I'd rather track this down if it is a simple fix before paying for a new one. Thanks again for the direction and help.
 
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