Fitting a 50 amp Charger

[SemusMcgilicoty]

Got myself a 50amp charger coming. Bells and whistles. 7 stage. Will hard wire it to rcd protected 240 shore supply.

Best way to hook her up??

At the moment the 4 yo 4 x Trojan 105s (470 amp hr) are and have only been charged by the 270 watt solar array via a Mark PV Solar regulator and the Balmar 100 Amp alternator.

Most of the boat electrics is run on 12v supply. I need the charger in particular to supply juice for the deiso heater through winter whilst at berth. The solar array seems to take care of the 12v frigomatic and lighting ok so far. Power usage will deffinately step up once the kids live on board.

The electrics are hooked up to a link 2000 battery system which seems to show the voltage correctly and the amps used look legit although they door go into the positive when the sun is out and all 12v usage has ceased. The hours used/remaining are way out and I'm guessing need calibrating.

She also runs through the Mark PV Solar regulator which seems to show ok LED representation of battery capacity but other info such as amps coming in look off.

I'm wondering if I just hook the charger up to the terminals direct or should I run the solar array feed and the charger feed to a switch so that one or the other is feeding the battery only? ??
It's a mess in the battery box atm and the less I stuff with it the better until I can afford down time.

Thoughts????

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[donradcliffe]

Don't overthink this---just hook it up. If you want to turn off the charger, do it on the AC side.

[Privilege]

The terminals from the A/C charger should go to the bus bar on the downstream side of the battery monitor shunt. If you go directly to the batteries, the battery monitor will be bypassed and will not show how much is going in, whether you are bulk charging, absorption charging etc...
It doesn't make a difference that the solar panels are also going to the same point. As far as your batteries are concerned, it doesn't really matter where the charging current is coming from as long as it's regulated to the appropriate voltage.

Make sure that your wiring is rated for the increased amperage.

[SemusMcgilicoty]

Roger that. I'm getting the remote that comes with the charger so that will tell me what's going in. I think the solar array has bypassed the link 2000 shunt also and therefore doesn't show on there what's going in either. Bottom line I can hook it to the battery terminals and not have an issue with the solar nor with over charging?



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[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by SemusMcgilicoty

Bottom line I can hook it to the battery terminals and not have an issue with the solar nor with over charging?



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Yes, you can hook it up direct and as long as you have the Solar and the new charger programmed correctly, there will be no problem with over charging.
When the batteries are fully charged, all charge sources will go to float voltage and battery charging will essentially cease, then as you start pulling more amps, the charging sources will supply the needed amperage, sort of bypassing the batteries, up to the max it can produce.

[smac999]

don't hook it up to the battery terminals. everything goes after the link 2000 shunt. move the solar too if it's on the battery side.

fuse the charger cable at the battery pos. like a 70a MRBF fuse.

[nigelmercier]

Originally Posted by smac999

don't hook it up to the battery terminals. everything goes after the link 2000 shunt. move the solar too if it's on the battery side. fuse the charger cable at the battery pos. like a 70a MRBF fuse.

Agree 100%