Quote:
Originally Posted by sailinglegend
You know this will not do the same thing so why keep posting wrong information to try and promote your product?
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It will do the "same thing" if that "same thing" is keep the second bank charged. Does it operate in the same manner, no..
The simple and inexpensive Yandina Combiner on our boat did a five year 24/7 on the hook
cruise with only an 80W solar panel and 50A dumb regulated Mitsubishi stock alternator.
Dock time was less than 3% over the 24/7/5 years. The boat cruised from Labrador and
Newfoundland to
South America through the
canal and up to
Alaska then across the Atlantic with 97% of the time being spent at
anchor.
I have also installed many of these still never had a
single issue with "short start battery life" or one fail or cause the issues you purport will happen.
The only issues I have ever had were on the older 7600 units that had the adjustable voltages as sometimes DIY's would mess with them and and get them out of whack.. Blue Sea did away with the user adjustable pots, which was smart. They, as in, Yandina and Blue Seas ACR's have proven to be one of the most reliable devices I've ever worked with, if installed appropriately. The Echo Charger is also great but different as is the Sterling and Duo Charge.
After 2800 hours of
engine use over 5 years of 24/7
live-aboard cruising and many thousands more hours from solar charge combining the Yandina relay on our boat was spotless inside. The contacts were not burned or discolored. That relay is still plugging away to this day..
Our next set of
batteries is now six years old, combined via solar, battery charger occasionally (on the hard) and the dumb regulated alternator.
The start battery is still testing within a few % of new CCA on both the Argus and Midtronics analyzers. Interestingly it has taken slightly less
water than the house bank over the six years.
I accidentally broke the cover on the Yandina Combiner a few years ago and replaced it with a Blue Sea ACR, only because I had one in-stock.
I then ordered a new cover from Yandina, they sent if free of charge, even when I insisted on paying because IT WAS MY OWN FAULT. They refused to let me pay!!! I then installed the Yandina on my brothers boat and it is still going strong at 13+/- years of age and thousands & thousands of "combined hours".. Yandina's customer service is EXCELLENT...
But perhaps the most IMPORTANT aspect is that the "start" battery, and many, many, many, many others I see and test survive just fine being combined. Ours had been combined and charged with a dumb
regulator (14.4V factory set) and a Yandina Combiner for 2800 engine hours + solar and was still going strong at year six after surviving 6 years of 2800 engine hours of "combining" and thousands more hours of solar combining.
These results were not confirmed with a "shoot from the hip" or licked finger in the air to determine
wind direction, they were and are determined with carbon pile load tests & Argus and Midtronics analyzers as well as SG when I feel it warranted..
I generally do not "20 hour test" start
batteries unless GEL or
AGM. It's just not worth it for the $60.00 +/- USD start batteries cost..
When we got a new bank I gave the six year old start battery to my brother for his 30' sport
fishing boat. On his boat it continued to start a pair of saltwater series 225HP
Mercury outboards through year TEN of the batteries life. And again, that battery was "combined" for its entire ten year life with dumb regulated alternators.
If ten years is short life for a $60.00 battery that had been used on a 5 year 24/7 cruising boat then "retired" to start a sport
fishing boat 10-15 times per day, when fished, then I concede...
I also have a customer who completed the "Great Loop" in his
trawler. I have no idea how many thousands of hours he put on the engine on the Great Loop trip but it was a LOT. His start battery, 7 years old, is still in excellent
health, though his house bank at year 7 getting long in the tooth.... His boat has a Blue Sea ACR combining relay...
I have hundreds of combiners installed on customers boats, not all installed by me though. I find the scare tactics and information about "over charging", simply does not translate to the real world and does no one any good. Especially an excellent manufacturer who actually STANDS BEHIND their product like Yandina, which in this day and age is RARE.....
Sometimes what seems so set in stone in
theory simply does not manifest or translate to the real world...
Quote:
Originally Posted by sailinglegend
I have been looking carefully at all three products and none of them actually do the same thing as each other.
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They all
work slightly differently but they all do the same thing as in keeping a second bank charged. Some have more current capability or more bells and whistles but the intent is the same.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sailinglegend
The Sterling seems to be designed to be connected to the starter battery first. It then "sucks" power out of an non-regulated alternator and delivers 4 stage charging to the service bank.
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The Sterling works equally well in the other direction. I have installed them that way. Have one on my bench ready to be installed in a few weeks in a GEL application. They are well built and the
water proof version is very nice. They are a bit bulky and pricey but they work very well and can actually "boost" the voltage from say a GEL house bank to an AGM start bank, if necessary. It was originally designed for installations where you are trying to charge a trolling battery while towing a boat
trailer and feeding it from the car or trucks system. Charlie Jr. has promised to add a diagram to the manual for HOUSE to START but I've not yet seen it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sailinglegend
The EchoCharge is simply a "voltage follower" that has a small volt drop so could overcharge a starter or bowthruster battery. Only when the service battery falls to a float voltage will the EchoCharge follow.
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Again, hundreds of these installed and never once seen an instance of "short battery life" of a start battery due to "over charging" and these have been around since the 90's. It it was an "issue" it would have surfaced by now...
Quote:
Originally Posted by sailinglegend
If the problems with the Balmar are true then non of these products seem to do the job properly.
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I don't
recall measuring the stand by of a Duo Charge at .5A but am working on a boat tomorrow where I have one installed. I will measure it...
I still find the biggest issue with the Duo Charge to be that it locks out at 30A and won't re-start until that bank does not require 30A. With AGM batteries, and some wets, the initial in-rush can very often exceed 30A which shuts it down. I would not install a Duo for a bow thruster,
windlass or engine battery on an engine that has high demands such as the newer common rail diesels...
As one who actually works on boats daily, owns the proper test equipment/analyzers, I just don't see the "charging" issues some purport should happen with combiners or the Echo...
That said if I did not have the test
equipment, nor seen what I see, measure it, touch it and live it I'd probably be sitting behind my computer saying the same things based on "theory"...