Another battery charging question

[BassChump]

I know this subject has probably been beat to death but I'll ask anyway.

I have a 40 lb thrust trolling motor and when I go fishing, I fish hard and long. Sometimes two lakes in one day. Dawn to dusk sometimes.

I have 2 wet cell, deep cycle marine batteries. 160 reserve capacity. They are one year old matching batteries bought at the same time. I have hooked them together but still 12 volt.

I have a 10 amp charger but I've never seen it charge more than 7 amps when severely discharged.

My problem is that it takes more than 1 day to charge both batteries fully. I normally leave them hooked together when charging. Is that bad?

So here's my question.

Should I just get another battery charger and charge each battery seperately or should I get two spare batteries and switch them out when I fish on consecutive days? I know I shouldn't charge a deep cell battery quickly like a starting battery. What can I do to charge the batteries faster?

  Thanks in advance for you thoughts......

[Jig Man]

You can add a charger and charge the two seperately or you can get a bigger charger and charge both at the same time.

[Team_Dougherty]

You can add a charger and charge the two seperately or you can get a bigger charger and charge both at the same time.

I agree.

at 7 amps each battery is getting 3.5 amps. That is barely enough to charge it. I would get another 10 amp charger or a dual bank charger.

[Fishbone]

What Paul said.

[Crestliner2008]

Check out the "Stay N' Charge". This is my 5th. season with the two batteries on my boat; a series #27 deep cycle and a marine starting battery. Both batteries have lasted well. No heavy, heat producing, on-board charger to be concerned with. Your batteries are being charged as soon as you pull off.

Go to www.stayncharge.com for the details. No problems, no worries.

[Star Man]

While I'm new at this myself, what I found out was that getting a 2 bank charger, even though I currently now only have the one battery, allows me to double up the charging leads now and later with a second battery, have both charging at the same time. But most importantly, I bought a dual bank that has 10 amps per bank. My XPSi 10/10 made by Professional Mariner for Bass Pro has a total of 20 amps. Some of the other models of chargers I looked at had model numbers like abc 10 and being a dual bank charger, each bank was only 5 amps each. So I learned that some models show total amps versus others showing amp per bank. Big difference.