ProMariner chargers?

quality time

Well-Known Member
Oct 30, 2007
2,352
Upper Chesapeake Bay
Boat Info
Miss Stress
2006 50' Post
Engines
Series 60 Detroits
My OEM 14 year old charger may be on it's last legs and I see that a lot of people are using the ProMariner ProNautic's. I also see a lot of failures and customer service complaints reported online, does anybody have good or bad experience with them? Looking at the 1250P model and I like the remote display capability but don't want to have to replace it every couple years.

The same chargers are also sold under the Sterling Power brand.
 
I replaced an PM Flyback with the newer ProNautic about 5 years ago. Still going strong. I know of, personally and professionally, quite a few others that have used them and all are happy with them. It's pretty rare for someone to go online and report "good" things, you know? Most only go online to complain... which often skews the +/- reviews.
 
My ProNautic 12-40P lasted 2 months and made for some fun on my way to FL last month. Trying to figure out whether to troubleshoot or dispose of it. Spoke with Customer Service and well as the guys that installed it. I got an email with the "in-depth" trouble shooting guide but all I got was people scratching their heads. Trying to find someone in Jupiter to go look at it.
 
Dennis - I do tend to go straight to the negative reviews on Amazon!

Todd - your experience sounds like most of the negative reviews.

Just wondering if you get what you pay for since they can be bought for ~$400.
 
Yeah, I think we all tend to go straight to the negative reviews. I try to look for a common theme from one negative review to another.

Another thing to keep in mind is that (and I'm not recommending to buy or not buy the PM unit - just other info to think about) PM is a very popular brand, which means there are many, many of these units out there. For sake of argument, let's say that ALL brands of chargers have the same X% failure rate. If brand A sells 10,000 units a year and brand B sells 1,000 units a year, obviously there will appear to be more failures from brand A.

Given the huge amount of people on this forum and that fact that PM has been a mainstay product used by Sea Ray in the good majority of their models and that we really don't see a lot of posts about chargers, it likely shows that PM is a (generally) reliable product.

Another brand to look at is Charles. I have not personally used this brand, but I have heard good things about them over the years.
 
No issues at all with my 1240p with one bank of 2 group 27 dual cycles and one bank of 2x6v golf cart deep cycles.
 
I just installed the 1250P yesterday which I upgraded from the original 11 year old 40 amp Promariner.

I also looked at other brands but found after looking at instal instructions that the 1250P was the easiest to install albeit still requiring increases in higher amp breakers and DC wiring. Physically the 1250P also fitted in the bilge in the same location whereas some of the other chargers would not have fitted. Furthermore, in my search, I also found other chargers had negative reviews as well so it seemed none were without problems. Finally, if you like the idea of a remote display, you might want to look at the prices of other brands remotes as some were fairly exxy.

Here is a link I found to an article on an install of the Sterling version, albeit a lower amperage.

http://www.pbase.com/mainecruising/installing_a_marine_battery_charger

Mastervolt is another charger I looked at as Riviera here in Australia uses them in their boats.
 
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Installed a 1240P in a 260DA and it performed flawlessly for the 3 years before I sold the boat. When I need one for our current boat, it will be a ProMariner.

Bennett
 
I installed a 1260P about 3 years ago. I did install the remote display as well and have had no issues. The hard part was I had to update all of the wiring for the larger unit but I wanted faster charging for my Trojan J185H batteries. When we anchor out for days on end, we run the genny to charge the batteries and I want that as fast as possible.
 
I installed a 1260P about 3 years ago. I did install the remote display as well and have had no issues. The hard part was I had to update all of the wiring for the larger unit but I wanted faster charging for my Trojan J185H batteries. When we anchor out for days on end, we run the genny to charge the batteries and I want that as fast as possible.

Did you swap out the battery cables for the motors to 2/0? What other wires did you have to swap out?
 
An on-board charger should not effect or impact any other circuits on the boat, as the charger's leads will connect direct to the batteries. No 12V cables would need addressed. The one exception may be the boat's A/C supply to the old charger. Slim chance, but it may need to upgrade it for a new charger if there was a substantial jump in charger output. However, new chargers have gotten more efficient, so more output with less draw.
 
The DC wiring from the charger to the breakers in the 12 volt bilge panel needed to be upgraded to min of 6 AWG on mine. Ditto for the neg and chassis ground to the neg bus bar. My AC was 10 AWG so no problems there. Relevant AC and DC breakers all had to be upgraded.
 
I checked all wiring sizes as I moved from the OEM Guest 20amp to a 40 amp. All wiring was good. Wiring diagram for the boat said I had 50amp 12v breakers so good there too. However, I kept randomly tripping one of the two breakers. I took the 12v distribution panel out and found instead of 50amp breakers, I had 20s. Changed those out to 50s and that was all I had to do other than the install. Every time the charger would try to feed more than 20 amps, one bank would trip the breaker.

Bennett
 
Thanks for the replies, looks like I’ll be going with the ProMariner. I’ll be sticking with the same size charger so I assume the factory wiring is sufficient. Hopefully just an easy swap out.
 
I installed the 1260P on my boat about two years with not problems. Very easy install and I use the wiring in the boat. Even though the inline breakers to the batteries are rated at 50 amps, they have never popped. In all reality the total output of the charger is 60 amp, but typically both banks are diminished and so that 60 amps is split between the banks which keeps it less that 60. Most I have ever seen going into on bank was about 40 amps.

There is one gotcha with that charger though. If you turn the power to it off and back on in less than 30 seconds it will power back up, but it won't charge. This has happened to me twice when I was switching between shore power and generator power which led to very low batteries the next day. It could be a potentially disastrous problem if it happened while switching from generator to shore power and you leave boat and it starts taking on water as the bilge pump will quickly kill the battery without the charger on line. Having the remote display panel, which I do not, would help mitigate this problem. I'd still buy this charger though.

Good luck,

Pete
 
Did you swap out the battery cables for the motors to 2/0? What other wires did you have to swap out?
Battery cables were fine, I had to replace the DC Cables from the charger to the solenoids and DC panel. I also replaced the main breakers in the panel with fuses.the breakers were 50 amp and when the charger would kick in it would trip the breakers due to overload.
 
Thanks for the replies, looks like I’ll be going with the ProMariner. I’ll be sticking with the same size charger so I assume the factory wiring is sufficient. Hopefully just an easy swap out.
Super easy to swap out in kind. Make sure all AC power is off and disconnect the positive cables from your batteries!
 

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