How long should it take to charge my 12v TM battery?

[Avalonjohn44]

Went out to the lake yesterday for 5 hours, was on the TM a lot of it because of wind. I came home and immediately plugged it in and went to work. Came back about 10 hours later and the TM was not fully charged yet. It finished sometime overnight, but I thought it would be quicker than that.

Foolishly I didn't take note of how long it took the first few times, though one of them I remember thinking it was taking rather a long time...

I have the stock on board charger that came with the Tracker 190, should I be using something more robust or am I just impatient?

[EllisJuan]

What amp is the stock charger?

[EvanT123]

It's probably a half factor of what you used the battery for. Use it longer, the longer it takes to charge. 

[Way2slow]

That is totally based on the type charger, (the method it's designed to use to charge the battery), the size of the charger, (amp rating) and the discharge level and condition of the battery.  Usually, the cheaper the charger, the longer it takes to charge.

A good charger, the recommend size (10% of the batteries rating) and a battery at approx. 50% discharge and it should take approx. five hours.  A cheap charger the same size can take a couple hours longer, and a few can do it a lot quicker.

The charging method the charger is designed to use has a major role in the time it takes to charge one.  Some chargers start off strong on a discharged battery but as the battery gains charge, the also start dropping voltage and slowing down.  The better chargers maintain a steady charge state through each of it's phases and a computer chip controls the level of charge and charge rate, and go into a maintenance mode when the charge is completed.\

Check out the The Pro Mariner, Pro Tournament 300.  They will charge a battery about as fast as anything out there and a lot faster than most.  That used to be all I would run but have fallen out with their quality and service so now, I would not buy one.

[Avalonjohn44]

Its the Gen Mini 2. 2 Bank 8Amp charger.  Each bank shows 12v out 4a...

[fishnkamp]

You really want a 10 to 15 amp per bank charger. i have been using the Cabelas group 30 series AGM batteries with one of these from Bass Pro. It distributes 10 amps per bank so it is a two bank charger supplying 10 amps to each and keeps my batteries alive and well. I purchased the batteries, charger and boat back in 2010

[Way2slow]

A little basic education and you can do the math.  For explanation purposes, lets assume you have a 100 amp hour battery.  You run it until it has discharged 75%, the max you should ever really discharge one for good battery life.  That means you have used 75 amps from your 100 amp hour battery, so the charger has to replace that much.  Your charger can only replace a max of four amps per hour so all you have to do is divide that 75 amps you need by the four amps the charger can put out.   So, with my limited math, that looks about like 19 hours.

Now, you just have to hope you don't fish till dark or a little after and fully discharged your batteries, and then plan on being back on the lake by daylight the next morning with fully charged batteries to go the next day.  That ain't gonna happen.

I hate to say this, but what you have is more suited for a maintainer than a charger.