Question on Solar Battery Charging for 195CC

[montereydiver]

I have a 2008, Triumph 195CC with two batteries and the battery switch. I have seen it advertised that by plugging a solar charger into the cigarette lighter, the batteries can be maintained. If I plug a solar charger into the cigarette lighter, and have the battery switch turned to "ALL", will this trickle charge both batteries?
Thanks
Stephen

 

[ejbpesca]

I don't see why not. When you switch to ALL it means your cig lighter is still getting 12v from the batteries that are connected to make one big 12v battery out of two or are your batteries providing 24v at the cig lighter as my boat has for a 24v trolling motor system? Sounds like you have a 12v system. Battery A or B or ALL..still 12volts. If these are your cranking and running batteries they most likely are wired as 12 volts no matter which one or both are on. My solar chargers (as most are) are designed to charge 12v batteries. Bottom line is simple to me...if you get 12v out at cig lighter with ALL selected then you can put 12v back in via a solar panel. The solar panels I have only allow current to flow out of them not in. They are very very light duty. If you get a larger panel, i.e. with more wattage, you may need an extra piece of equipment to put between the panel and the battery. This device causes the charging to stop when the batteries get a full charge otherwise the electricity just flows on which can damage a battery.

 

[BeeReel]

The real question is what other items will be on drawing power when you have the battery switched to BOTH/ALL? Your draw down might be greater than the solar charger provides?

 

[montereydiver]

I have a 12 volt system with two batteries. When I am not using my boat, and it is sitting in my driveway, there is no other draw on the batteries that I know of. I spoke to Merritt Marine about this and they were lukewarm about applying power to the cigarette lighter to charge the batteries. They thought I should attach a dedicated line to the batteries (they would be in parallel) with a jack on the line I can access readily from outside the console. The jack could be in the compartment at the top of the console or inside the storage compartment at the bottom. I could do that.
08 195CC 150HP Yamaha, trailered

 

[ejbpesca]

Well..yes indeed..all systems should be off. Just put my solar cells on today, nothing is drawing from them except the batteries until next time I hook up the trolling motor. Some folks have this concept that you can actually power boat utilities from a solar cell. Well, with a big one you may run a radio but any I've ever seen put out very little wattage. The cranking battery is maintained by the engine on my boat but I can see where one not used much could benefit from a trickle charge. Are the batteries you write about to run the boat or are they for a trolling motor? (high watt draw) My spare (sitting free from anything) needs a boost here and there but yes, of course, have all systems off to charge and I think you are there. It will take a while though. Solar cells put the trick in trickle charge if you are charging drained batteries....unless u have some huge array.