DC/DC Onboard Ionic Transfer Charger (12V to 24V)

The Ionic Transfer Charger sits between your boat’s 12V engine/starter battery and your 24V trolling motor bank. While your outboard is running and the alternator is producing 30 amps or more, the charger pulls excess current from the 12V starter side, boosts the voltage to 24V, and feeds it into your trolling bank — adding charge to your trolling motor batteries during your run between fishing spots. It will not charge with the engine off or until your 12V starter battery itself is fully topped up. Output is up to 16A at 480W max, with a 29.2V LiFePO4-aware target voltage. Think of it as continuously topping off your trolling bank during every run instead of waiting until you’re back at the dock.

No — sleep current is less than 1 mA when idle, which is negligible parasitic draw. The charger sits in standby with the ON/OFF switch on and waits for two conditions before it begins transferring: your 12V starter battery is fully charged, and the alternator is delivering 30A+. If either condition isn’t met, it stays in standby. You can leave it powered on permanently without worrying about waking up to a dead cranking battery — it’s designed for continuous installation on a boat that may sit between trips.

A few install requirements that matter:

Disconnect any battery selector switch on your trolling bank first. This is the most common installation mistake — if a 1/2/Both/Off selector switch is wired between the charger output and your trolling batteries, the charger can sense voltage incorrectly and behave abnormally (including charging when it shouldn’t). Remove or disconnect the selector before wiring the charger in.

Connect to the 12V engine battery first, then to the trolling bank — and reverse the order when uninstalling (disconnect trolling first). The unit uses heavy 8-gauge red (+) and black (–) cables.

Mind reverse polarity. Connecting lithium batteries backwards through this unit causes permanent damage and is not covered under warranty. Double-check terminals before energizing.

All trolling batteries in the bank must match. Same chemistry, same age, same voltage rating — mixing brands or ages will cause uneven charging and shorten battery life across the bank.

Mount in any orientation in a dry location with at least 2″ clearance top and bottom for ventilation. Don’t mount directly above lead-acid batteries (corrosive gas) or near a fuel tank

Two LEDs on the unit tell you what’s happening:

Power LED lights up when the ON/OFF switch is in the ON position — confirms the unit is energized.

Charge Status LED indicates what the charger is doing:

• Red Blinking → Fault or error. Most often caused by a bad connection or input voltage outside the 10–18V range. Check terminals, fuses, and that the engine is running with the alternator above 30A.
• Red Solid → Actively charging. You should see this once the engine is running, the alternator is delivering enough current, and the trolling bank isn’t full.
• Green Solid → Trolling bank is fully charged. The unit is idle but ready.

When you first connect, the status LED may stay solid red for up to 30 seconds while the unit diagnoses the trolling battery state — that’s normal initialization, not a fault.

It depends on three things: how long your engine runs between fishing spots, how much current your alternator delivers above what your starter battery needs, and what trolling motor size you’re running.

A reasonable estimate: on a typical bass or center console boat where you run the outboard 15–30 minutes between spots and your alternator has 50–80A of headroom, you can recover roughly 2–4 Ah back into your 24V bank per engine run. Over a full day with several relocations, that compounds to meaningful extra trolling time — often the difference between calling it early in the afternoon and fishing until sunset.

What you’re really buying is sustained trolling capacity without upsizing your battery bank. Rather than carrying heavier/larger 24V trolling batteries, you get more useful runtime out of a smaller bank by topping it off during every run. For very long center-console days or heavy wind/current situations where the trolling motor is working hard, this is especially valuable.