Maine,
Your points are valid and I'm not quarreling with them. But give the OP a bit of a break. It's a common frustration for me, that goes in two opposing directions:
* The first is the common advice to not buy your goods from Home Depot or such places, because you need to get "marine grade" products, and when you buy from HD you have no idea what you are getting -- and often it won't be Marine Grade.
* The flip side, the one the OP is facing, is that when you buy from a Marine Chandlery, one would assume that you are getting "marine grade" if for no other reason than you are paying so much more money. The OP's charger is available from Defender, arguably a reputable source of marine gear. While Defender sells many items that are not the very best, one would assume that they are at least suitable for marine use -- but as seen here, that is not the case. Jamestown doesn't sell that unit, but does sell 4 other Guest chargers (that may or may not be suitable for marine use). Similarly, if you go to West and try to buy a fire extinguisher, you will find that they do not sell a single fire extinguisher that is USCG certified without buying additional products (read the label very carefully with regard to the required bracket -- which is not in the standard box).
It's a very daunting world out there. A DIY boat owner would like to think that they can do some DIY work without massively extensive research. The unfortunate fact is that the DIY owner cannot even determine what they SHOULDN'T do without massive amounts of research!
As I said, I have no quarrel with your advice -- it's good stuff. Just sympathy for the OP!
Harry
I install LOTS of non-marine "labeled" stuff. There are however some items where I want more than just a marine sticker or price tag..
I don't find it unreasonable to expect a battery charger to meet some sort of minimum UL or ABYC requirements especially when there are chargers out there that do, that also sell for less or similar money. This is not to say the Guest charger is not "suitable" for marine use, just that it may not meet the minimum design or safety requirements or carry a UL1236 rating.
As I said there are other chargers that offer more features, have passed UL 1236, offer a chassis ground (which is also a requirement) and don't split the output in two thus, the majority of the time, wasting half the rating of the charger.
These guest chargers do not do "distributed by demand" charging. The max you get out of output #1 is 6A or 10A (depending upon model) and the most you get out of output #2 is the same. So if the start battery only needs 0.5A and your house bank would take 30A, if you had it, you still only get 6 or 10A to the house and the other 5.5A or 9.5A, the charger is capable of, goes wasted and un-used.
On price for example, on the 16102 12A model, it can be misleading because you are really buying two 6A chargers not a 12A. This charger should ideally be considered a 6A charger not a 12A because a start battery requires very little charging.. These models should really be compared price wise to a 6A or 10A charger not a 12A or 20A distributed by demand charger.
The Guest "12A" 16102 charger sells for about $150.00 +/- but your house bank, the one that really needs it, will really only ever see 6 amps.
A Xantrex True Charge 2 10A charger can be purchased for about $140.00 but you can see 9.5A to the house battery and 0.5A to a start battery and use the entire 10A you are paying for. It also passes/meets UL1236/ABYC standards and has a chassis ground.
The ProMariner Pronautic P 10A can be had for about $180.00 but has a 5 year warranty, meets UL1236, has a custom user program, 11 pre-sets, remote battery temp sensing as standard equipment, an optional remote, variable speed cooling fan and a chassis ground lug. It is also distributed by demand so a house battery could see the vast majority of the capacity, if needed, and the start battery would get what it needed without charger capacity, that you paid for, sitting there doing nothing..
I was just trying to help, not confuse. As I said there are better values for the money, that do more, and meet UL1236/ABYC safety standards.
This is not to say these chargers are not "safe" it just means they are not up to passing the stringent UL1236 safety testing. With chargers that put more current into the house bank, for similar money, that come with UL1236/ABYC compliance and a chassis ground on top of better warranties, it pays to shop around and do some research...
I was just helping speed up that research because there is a lot of expensive stuff out there that is not necessarily the "best value" for the money..
