Battery bank charging

[glenn.225]

Originally Posted by smac999

ditch the old tech 1-all-2 switch and buy a blue sea add a battery kit. the new on / off / combine switch isolates the house and start battery properly and the acr charges both while running. makes using the boat so much simpler. everything is automatic. get on boat, turn switch on. boat, get back to dock turn switch off. no fooling around deciding which one to start off, which one to sail off, and which one to charge.

I would also consider upgrading your charger. you should have about a 40 amp for 2 golf carts (25%) 5 amp is way too small. with the acr you will get all 10 going to the house battery. but that is still small.

if you are sitting at the dock pluged in, using the boat, you probably won't even be charging the batteries as it'll just be all going to loads.

Smac999

I will not be ditching the 1/2/ both switch, and I would not consider the off/ on/ combine switch. This is just silly, if you get a bad battery and combine them you will just kill the good battery. That's part of the problem "everyone" (mostly) wants to make everything automatic, "fire and forget", I like to know what is going on with my boat, car etc, give me gauges and switches the less mechanically inclined can make do with idiot lights.
I have chosen to configure it as recommended by Maine Sail, Stu Jackson and others although I am using the Blue Seas ARC vice the Echo Charger.
It's coming along but I am still waiting for the Victron monitor to arrive. I did finally get out for a sail on Saturday. Now to get my sail cover built.

[smac999]

Originally Posted by glenn.225

Smac999

I will not be ditching the 1/2/ both switch, and I would not consider the off/ on/ combine switch. This is just silly, if you get a bad battery and combine them you will just kill the good battery. That's part of the problem "everyone" (mostly) wants to make everything automatic, "fire and forget", I like to know what is going on with my boat, car etc, give me gauges and switches the less mechanically inclined can make do with idiot lights.
I have chosen to configure it as recommended by Maine Sail, Stu Jackson and others although I am using the Blue Seas ARC vice the Echo Charger.
It's coming along but I am still waiting for the Victron monitor to arrive. I did finally get out for a sail on Saturday. Now to get my sail cover built.

then get two 1/both/2 switches. put the load of the house on one switch, and the load of the engine on the other. make say battery 1 the engine battery and battery 2 the house. now when you come on board you switch the house switch to 2 and the engine swtich to 1. and leave it there all trip. in an emergency you can power either the house or engine from either battery, or combine them.

having both the engine and house loads on the common of the same switch is no good. having to manually switch every time you start and stop the engine is crazy. sooner of later you'll forget and kill the engine battery one day.

[Andina Marie]

Originally Posted by CharlieJ

This is such an error filled statement that it is laughable!
1. An ACR does not allow you to select either one battery or the other battery for service.
2. An ACR does not have an OFF position except for the Blue Sea ML series with manual over-ride.
3. An ACR does not need operator intervention in order to combine batteries for charging or un-combine them when providing load current. Both these events occur when voltage criteria is met; floor criteria for un-combining and ceiling criteria for combining.
4. A 1-2-Both-Off switch does not provide over voltage or under voltage protection. A Blue Sea ACR does.

1. If you look at the post instead of jumping to conclusions what I said was the "old" OFF,1,BOTH,2 switch will do the job and doesn't need to be replaced. It does allow you to leave one battery selected for starting and be able to parallel or use #2 for emergency starting. I said there was no justification for replacing that switch. I indicated that adding a Yandina Combiner to the existing switch would do the same thing.
2. Our ACR DOES have a remote manual override for OFF or ON.
3. Yandina Combiners have ALL these features. Combining and un-combining is fully automatic.
4. True, an OFF-1-BOTH-2 switch does not provide over or under voltage and NEITHER does the Blue Seas SWITCH, Both Blue Seas and Yandina have over and under voltage protection.

Your vigorous promotion of Blue Seas is admirable but read the post and use facts. Yandina invented the ACR in 1993 and have been selling them for 20 years all with UNCONDITIONAL warranty and we have the right to defend our brand when attacked.

[Andina Marie]

Originally Posted by CharlieJ

Good grief where are you coming from today?
1. The Andina Combiner 160 is 12VDC only but can handle 160A. The Blue Sea 7610 can be used for 12 or 24VDC systems and is rated for 120A.
2. The Andina Combiner 160 claims to be waterproof. The Blue Sea 7610 carries an IP67 rating.
3. The Blue Sea 7610 has an engine start feature to un-combine during the engine starting evolution so as to not drag down the house battery voltage and drop any electronics (GPS, chartplotter, etc.).
4. Your instructions require using a minimum of 6 feet of AWG 6 conductor, and only AWG 6, with no consideration for excessive voltage drop. Your warranty is void if the owner/buyer attempts to build a proper system with a minimum voltage drop by using > AWG 6.
5. A Yandina Combiner 160 provides minimum and specific over voltage and no under voltage protection. A Blue Sea ACR does out of the box with no special wiring.

I could go on but...

You offer a basic combiner, period.

Yes we offer two basic combiners and have done for 20 years.
1. The Combinrer 160 can handle 190 amps continuous so you are correct using the 120 amp Blue Seas for comparison. It is TRUE it is only 12 volt. We have had 24 volt versions available for about 10 years and of the original batch of 24 we have sold only 2. We won't be making any more. We also have a 12 to 24 volt Combiner and a 12 to 36 volt Combiner.
2. All our products exceed the requirements of IP67.
3. Yes in order to give UNCONDITIONAL warranty we require 6 feet of 6 gauge wire on the C160. This prevents contact welding when combining large battery banks at different voltages. THERE IS NO EXCESSIVE VOLTAGE DROP. Do the math. When in BULK and the charger is putting out 14.5 volts while the battery is internally somewhere less than fully charged of 12.8. So the differential voltage is 14.5 - 12.8 = 1.7 volts worst case. Cable resistance is 0.0004 ohms. Considering worst case current of 200 amps (which will only last for seconds) the voltage drop in the cable is 200 * 0.0004 = 0.08 volts being lost or less than 5%.
As the batteries reach full charge the current will drop to below 1 amp so the loss in the cables is 0.0004 volts. Excessive? Very few battery monitoring systems can even read that accurately on the 12 volt scale.
In 20 years we have never had a warranty return due to welded contacts. We have no way of verifying the gauge and length used by the customer but hope the guide promotes conservative installation.
4. The Combiner160 has OPTIONAL over voltage control of 14.2 volts and will REGULATE the voltage going to the secondary battery ONLY if needed. All our Combiners have under voltage protection about 11 volts.
Also check out the RESIDUAL current draining your batteries when NOT combining. The smallest Blue Seas draws 15 milliamps which is 1,000 times as much as all our Combiners. Ours do not need to be turned off when not in use to save running down the batteries.

"I could go on but..." But what is you vendetta against our products based on? Do you own stock in Blue Seas?

[Maine Sail]

Originally Posted by smac999

having both the engine and house loads on the common of the same switch is no good. having to manually switch every time you start and stop the engine is crazy. sooner of later you'll forget and kill the engine battery one day.

Why would you need to "manually switch" anything just to start a small aux engine on a sail boat... Just leave it on the house bank and go sailing, turn it off when you are done....

If you need to switch off the house bank to start a small aux diesel then something is very wrong with your system or batteries..

[CharlieJ]

But what is you vendetta against our products based on?

No vendetta; I actually use some of your products. I am simply trying to raise the factual information level when you advertise your products on this forum and do so by slamming other company's products.

Do you own stock in Blue Seas?

No.

I maintain that the design constraint of requiring a wire size of AWG 6, and nothing larger, when installing your Combiner 160 will induce unessacary and undesireable IR drops in the charging system. As an example, consider a 40' mono-hull sailboat.

Given:

1. 12VDC system
2. Starting battery in the engine compartment of a 40' sailboat
3. House bank (AGMs) under the settee midships
4. B+ conductor length from the Combiner 160 to the starting battery is 4' (AA)
5. B- conductor length from the starting battery to the Vessel Ground bus at the engine is 4' (BB)
6. B+ conductor length from the Combiner 160 to the house bank 15' (CC)
7. B- conductor length from the house bank to the aux. ground behind the panel board is 8' (DD)
8. B- conductor length from the aux. ground behind the panel board to the Vessel Ground bus at the engine is 10' (EE)
9. For convenience, the alternator output is connected to the starting battery and it is 4' long (FF)
10. House bank capacity (C) is 400Ahrs and will accept 0.25C or 100A
11. House bank is at approximately 50% state of charge (SOC)
12. Alternator is cold rated 160A; externally regulated with a three stage regulator and can easily supply 100A when demanded

The circuit length for charging the house battery via the Combiner 160 is:
AA + CC + DD + EE or: 37'

It is my opinion that we should design a system to minimize the voltage drop in the charging circuit so I use a maximum allowable IR drop of 3%.

Assuming 13.4VDC (during bulk stage) and using AWG 6 conductors, the formula for circular mils shows that there will be a 11.3% voltage drop. In fact, to achieve the design goal of an IR drop < 3% in the charging circuit would require 1/0 conductors and they would yield an IR drop of 2.8% which is tolerable.

[CharlieJ]

Andina Marie-

and we have the right to defend our brand when attacked.

I have re-read this thread and do not see where your brand is being attacked.

[sailinglegend]

Originally Posted by CharlieJ

.......I maintain that the design constraint of requiring a wire size of AWG 6, and nothing larger, when installing your Combiner 160 will induce unessacary and undesireable IR drops in the charging system......

Well said - but Andina Marie just doesn't listen - or worse doesn't understand!!!!!

[smac999]

Originally Posted by Maine Sail

Why would you need to "manually switch" anything just to start a small aux engine on a sail boat... Just leave it on the house bank and go sailing, turn it off when you are done....

If you need to switch off the house bank to start a small aux diesel then something is very wrong with your system or batteries..

you're right, he should probably just remove the starter battery then, save weight, save fuel, gain speed. who needs a starter battery for starting. just crank off the depleated house batteries. spiking the crap out of all the electronics which are on the same circuit.

[Maine Sail]

Originally Posted by smac999

you're right, he should probably just remove the starter battery then, save weight, save fuel, gain speed. who needs a starter battery for starting. just crank off the depleated house batteries. spiking the crap out of all the electronics which are on the same circuit.

In a properly wired system have you been able to measure this? I have not, even with an o-scope.... I've tried numerous times to capture these "spikes" and never been able to see them, in a properly wired system on a small sailboat aux engine...

I know they can exist, why I began measuring and checking for them. I also know they can cause issues in 18 wheelers and on the big Cats, Cummins, Manns etc. I work on but most all of these have dedicated start batteries from the factory. On small sailboat AX engines I've not been able to capture these "spikes".

The vast majority of my sailboat customers start and run house loads on the same bank and don't have "spiking the crap" out of their electronics issues...

I've been doing so personally for well over 25 years and also never once had an electronics failure other than by lightning, which is "spiking the crap" out of my electronics.

Ideally a dedicated hard wired start battery is great but I am not going to suggest to my customers an upgrade that only serves to empty their wallets when I have not been able to trace down any measurable evidence that this is posing an urgent problem.

I've got one customers who regularly draws his dual 6V batteries down to 30% SOC or 70% DOD. He still has all his original Datamarine instruments, his RL series Raymarine plotter is going on 18 years and working fine, his Ratheon 10XX radar is well over 20, his VHF is so old I can't even put a date on it yet he always leaves his battery switch on the house bank. I know he is due for electronics upgrades but they still work and he's on the cheaper side of the boat buck spectrum... He replaces his batteries every four years or so, because he depletes them so deeply, but they've never failed to start his motor.

On another note I am replacing a $458.00 Yanmar/VDO tachometer due to a lightning strike. Upon opening it up it is as delicate and high tech as any plotter or other piece of expensive equipment I have done surgery on. Why are these $$$$$ tachs and other sensitive gauges not affected by being connected to the same circuit?

This is a deep cycle house bank at 32F battery temp starting a 4 cyl Westerbeke.

When you combine batteries in a parallel bank you also add the CA. In this case these deep cycle batteries are capable of over 2000CCA.. The start battery on this boat is capable of about 650CCA....


Even during starting, at a 32F battery temp, air temp was colder, the deep cycle bank still stayed above 12V during the starting process....

[Andina Marie]

You can use any size cable on the Combiner160 and should do so on long runs. The only requirement is somewhere in the circuit there is 6 feet of 6 gauge wire. If running long distances then by all means use a heavier gauge wire so long as the resistance is the equivalent of 24 thousandths of an ohm or more.

At end of charge, even with 1/2 amp flowing the voltage drop will be 0.0012 volts.