Anchor Winch 12 V setup.....

[reiner]

I am in the middle of replacing my 25 year old Muir Anchor Winch. The electric site of it makes me wonder why it was done that way. Anyway at the moment I have a battery in the anchor box plus heavy leads coming from the house batteries. The main switch on the switchboard turns on the foot switches and the remove switch from the cockpit. On the battery in the anchor box there is a master switch witch connects or dis connects the anchor battery from the house batteries. I can see that would charge the anchor battery and makes it part of the house battery system. But why wouldn't you just hook the anchor winch battery parallel to the starter battery so it gets charged when you motor.
Or do I miss something?

Reiner

[delmarrey]

With my set up I just have a gp 24 battery mounted right next to the anchor locker. It's dedicated to just the windless & wash down pump. I have a combiner at the power panel with #2 wires running from the charging system. It has been this way for 4 years now and has alway preformed great! And I do a lot of gunk holing in the summers.

[noelex 77]

There are pros and cons to having a dedicated battery close to the anchor winch. Personally I am not a great fan, the cons outweigh the pros.

The main reason it is done is that it reduces the size of the wires that need to led forward.

The anchor winch can consume 100 even 150A in the larger sizes.

If the "heavy leads" in your case are of sufficient size not to induce too much voltage drop, you can do away with the front battery. (with some minor changes to fusing etc)
You do need to calculate if the wires are of adequate size. In most cases a bow battery has been installed the wres will not be large enough.

Post the wire size, the length of the run and the power draw of the winch and someone will do the calculation if you cannot do it yourself.

[delmarrey]

And don't forget the co$t & effort of running large wires cables forward, if what you already have isn't sufficient. Or you could take what is there and convert them to charging wire.

In my case I could have purchased two large 29 batteries for the price of the cable. At $6/ft min. x (30' X 2 ea.) 60' = $360, Plus end fitting$.

The #2 wire and a combiner, plus the battery and box totaled around $200. And a lot easier to run the wires.


.

[gts1544]

You want to be very careful about hooking anything in parallel with your starting battery, unless you protect your starting battery against a drain. Doing that causes a voltage drop to whatever you are trying to charge. There may be better methods!

[jeremiason]

I agree with Noelex... If you have the proper sized wire from the House Bank to the Windless, why complicate it with additional batteries.

If your existing wires are not the correct size, then yes, you can save money in the short run, by using batteries closer to the windless instead of a long run of heavy gauge wire. BUT, in the long run you are still going to have to replace the batteries from time to time, which raisies the orginal price closer to the wire only run.

Also I am lazy, so adding additional batteries would mean regularly servicing them, which cost me time from my other passion... enjoying life!

[djmarchand]

Many windlasses specify a 90 amp breaker. So with a 25' run from the house battery bank (more on this later) to the windlass, #1 wire will drop about .5 V at 90 amps, which is quite reasonable.

Genuinedealz (used to be Bestboatwire) sells #1 for about $4/ft, so the cost of wire is about $200. Even at 35' one way and a big 150 amp windlass, the cost of wire(1/0) is less than $400.

I believe windlasses should be powered by the house bank. That bank has plenty of amphour capacity for this job. Yes, your engine should be running anyway if you are retreiving the anchor, but if you are set up properly you are also charging your house batteries. Keep the starting batteries strictly for starting.

David

[Surrymark]

What about mounting a battery forward and keeping it trickle charged with a Battery Tender running off an inverter? A small wire will do for that little charger.

[evm1024]

Originally Posted by Surrymark

What about mounting a battery forward and keeping it trickle charged with a Battery Tender running off an inverter? A small wire will do for that little charger.

I consider this a bad idea....

This is how my boat came set up. Forward windlass battery charged by an older (big and heavy) inverter run off the inverter.

Tied to shore power the charger will keep the battery up but off the grid you will need the inverter running to charge the battery. Inverters are not 100% efficient.... So expect it to run off the engine or solar for a while to get a full charge. We are not talking about a lot of amp hours but it does add up.

Plus there is an extra point of failure. The charger can fail or the inverter can fail and then you will be raising the anchor by hand.

I changed out my system to have some #8 wire run from the main DC buss in the engine room through a breaker (that protects the wire) to an echo charge that does the charging of the windlass battery.

This gives 10 to 15 amps of charge when the voltage on the buss is great enough and isolates the house and windlass banks from each other. Plus I get a 10 to 15 amp boost in current if needed by the windlass.

I also have a 50 amp breaker that overides the echo charge and allows the main DC buss to supply current to the windlass battery and windlass. This is a current boost and the thought is that even if the windlass battery is disconnected I have 50 amps to lift the anchor with if needed. No load but the anchor and chain weight of course.

#8 is rated for 80 amps outside of the engine room so I may change the 50 amp breaker out someday.

house----breaker--------------------+--echo--+---battery-----windlass
.................................................. .+-breaker-+

perhaps that crude drawing will come out right (the dots are just space holders)

Regards

[CarinaPDX]

Agreed that doing without a dedicated battery is the way to go.

Consider that a small windlass might draw 60A, and take about 3 minutes (total run time) to raise the anchor. That is 3 minutes/60 minutes X 60A= 3Ah. A larger windlass (120A) would be 6Ah. This is very little total charge, only occasionally used, so pretty hard to justify the cost and weight of a battery forward.

If using a dedicated battery with small wire for charging be very careful about the design so as to prevent those small wires carrying the full motor current. Consider this: if the windlass battery is flat, and is connected to the house or start battery with a combiner, then the full 60A or 120A (or whatever) will be drawn down those small wires. Either that will blow a fuse, trip a breaker, or risk a fire. Edit: Of course the wire could be sized to handle the full current, but then why have the battery?

The extra battery adds complexity, cost, and weight. Against that is the cost of the heavy cable and a few hours of effort to run. I buy 50ft reels of marine grade battery cable (Cobra or Almo - Ancor is too expensive). Depending on size, $200-400 total. And a simple, reliable, and no-extra-maintenance system is the result.

Greg

[btrayfors]

It's good to know everyone's experience and druthers, but no one has answered the OP's question: why was it wired this way?

Actually, it's not a bad way at all. The heavy wiring goes to the HOUSE batteries, not the start battery, and there's a dedicated battery up forward for the windlass which has it's own cutoff switch.

This makes perfect sense, since the house batteries could be way down after several days at anchor and, if the windlass battery switch had been OFF, then there would be plenty of juice to raise the anchor.

The cutoff switch on the windlass battery is important, since you don't want to drag down the windlass battery as the house batteries become deeply discharged.

As the house batteries come up to a higher state-of-charge (with the alternator, an onboard generator, wind generator, or solar panels) then the windlass battery could be switch into the circuit for recharging.

It's not the way I'd do it, but it's a perfectly logical and good system, IMHO. Since you already have it, I'd leave it alone.

Bill

[cat man do]

Have a look at welding leads as a more affordable solution

[evm1024]

There is additional complexity in a forward battery. That is a given.

I do like having an isolated windlass battery which has an echo charge. The echo charge keeps it topped off and if for some reason (never will happen, right?) your house and start banks are dead you have a chance of starting the engine. Just move the windlass battery aft and wire it in (you do have jumper cables?).

regards


PS welding cable is typically not tinned. This leads to corrosion.

[Blue Stocking]

Originally Posted by btrayfors

It's good to know everyone's experience and druthers, but no one has answered the OP's question: why was it wired this way?

Actually, it's not a bad way at all. The heavy wiring goes to the HOUSE batteries, not the start battery, and there's a dedicated battery up forward for the windlass which has it's own cutoff switch.

This makes perfect sense, since the house batteries could be way down after several days at anchor and, if the windlass battery switch had been OFF, then there would be plenty of juice to raise the anchor.

The cutoff switch on the windlass battery is important, since you don't want to drag down the windlass battery as the house batteries become deeply discharged.


As the house batteries come up to a higher state-of-charge (with the alternator, an onboard generator, wind generator, or solar panels) then the windlass battery could be switch into the circuit for recharging.

It's not the way I'd do it, but it's a perfectly logical and good system, IMHO. Since you already have it, I'd leave it alone.

Bill

+1.
If you are using a forward battery, this arrangement seems to cover all the possibilities.

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by evm1024

PS welding cable is typically not tinned. This leads to corrosion.

Correct but I was not aware that large sized cable could be purchased tinned. (just had a look and I can at a price..a very big price)
And saying that there are no shortage of boats using it successfully.
Probably have to do and seal your end connections correctly .