Charging a battery bank - advice please?

[larrysanders]

Hi, I have a bank of 3 x 110 batteries, 1 starter and 2 leisure. Can you charge each of these batteries separately with a car charger while they're linked together or will this have a detrimental effect on the three batteries or the charger?

 

With thanks.

[aread2]

Hi, I have a bank of 3 x 110 batteries, 1 starter and 2 leisure. Can you charge each of these batteries separately with a car charger while they're linked together or will this have a detrimental effect on the three batteries or the charger?

 

With thanks.

It took my 11A car battery charger nearly two days to fully charge a single completely flat 110ah leisure battery. For comparison the Multiplus on the boat has a maximum output of 120A but even this would need at least 8 hours to reach 100% charge as the final 20% will be at low current.

Edited April 17, 2013 by aread2

[alan_fincher]

Can you charge each of these batteries separately with a car charger while they're linked together or will this have a detrimental effect on the three batteries or the charger?

 

If any are linked together, you can't charge them separately. Any charging effort will be shared between the joined batteries.

 

To charge one individually, you must remove any links connecting it to any of the others.

 

Charging the whole bank, or indeed an individual battery with a low powered car charger cannot damage either, but, as has been said, it could take an inordinately long time to achieve it.

[jonathanA]

just to add that its usual for the starter battery to be separate (electrically) to the domestics so you would need to charge that separately anyway. You wouldn't want to leave a simple car charger conencted to your batteries for weeks on end but a day or so if they were very flat would be ok.

[larrysanders]

Many thanks for all the replies above. Very useful info!