How to connect Sterling Pro Charge 12v 50A

[George64]

Hi,

I Have the mentioned charger and the manual is confusing me. The manual syas that the connections for the battery count from one to three, starting left and having three at the right side, however the print shows three at the left and one at the right. What is the correct order?

Secondly, I have three parallel AGM house hold and one sealed lead start battery. How does the preset work in that case?

Thanks for your time and reply!

[skipmac]

Do you mean the charger has connections for three different and separate battery banks? Otherwise I don't know what three different connections would be for a battery.

Left or right will depend on which way you look at the charger so cannot say. What if you look at the connections on the charger itself? Are they not labeled at all? What about on the back side, any labels or numbers there.

Regarding preset not sure what that is in this context. Would that be the charging voltage and profile so different charging outputs for different battery types, IE flooded lead acid or AGM or gels? Will the charger manage two different charging profiles at the same time on different outputs?

[brantleychuck]

Call the tech line

[btrayfors]

See this excellent article on installing a Sterling Pro battery charger:
Installing A Marine Battery Charger Photo Gallery by Compass Marine How To at pbase.com

Bill

[George64]

Made a picture of the manual. Hope you can see what I mean with the numbering.

[skipmac]

Based on the photo it does seem unclear. The wires are labeled 1,2,3 but if you look closely at the labels printed on the circuit board it is CH3, Ch2, CH1.

I would deal with it this way in this order.

1. Contact tech support at Sterling and ask them.
2. If you can't get an answer from Sterling then try a DIY diagnosis.
- Program output 1 for a certain charging output.
- Program the other outputs for no battery or a very different charge.
- Connect wire labeled 1 to a battery and turn on the charger
- Check the voltage with an accurate meter to see if it matches.

[Stu Jackson]

Maine Sail's tutorial answered the question. The first + is to the immediate left of the -.

[atoll]

Originally Posted by George64

Hi,

I Have the mentioned charger and the manual is confusing me. The manual syas that the connections for the battery count from one to three, starting left and having three at the right side, however the print shows three at the left and one at the right. What is the correct order?

Secondly, I have three parallel AGM house hold and one sealed lead start battery. How does the preset work in that case?

Thanks for your time and reply!

installed a sterling procharger a few months ago.

as far as the preset goes you can set it for lead acid as this will not over charge the agm or lead acid batteries,as they have similar charging regimes.

your house batteries you should bridge terminal#1 and #2 to the agms and use terminal#3 for the engine battery.

http://www.sterling-power.com/images...structions.pdf

[Triumphant]

Originally Posted by brantleychuck

Call the tech line

Good luck. If you are really unlucky you will get the charming Charles Sterling himself

[Cuttyhunk]

Originally Posted by Triumphant

Good luck. If you are really unlucky you will get the charming Charles Sterling himself

His son is quite personable!

[George64]

Getting in contact with Sterling via email is challenging: dropped them an email on another subject several weeks ago, and still awaiting their answer.

The different manuals are confusing on the connectivity. I'll give them a call the coming days and explain the situation. Changing the preset from AGM to Sealed Acid at least made the charger charge my household batteries.

[ericoh88]

I have the sterling 60a 12v.

I understand the manual as saying terminal 1, 2 and 3 are separated by diodes and you can charge 3 separate banks of battery of the same type ie, gel batteries one for house, one for engine and one for anchor/bow thruster.

I wired the 3 terminals together to charge my house batteries and let the combiner take care of the start battery.

[Matt sachs]

If I go with a Sterling Pro 12v 50A charger, does the solar and wind input go thru it, or is that seperate? If its seperate, it there a unit that will accomadate shore power, solar and wind to charge the bank?

[nigel1]

Originally Posted by Matt sachs

If I go with a Sterling Pro 12v 50A charger, does the solar and wind input go thru it, or is that seperate? If its seperate, it there a unit that will accomadate shore power, solar and wind to charge the bank?

Regarding the Sterling Pro, no, the solar and or wind is not connected to the Sterling charger.

I do no of any unit which can take inputs from shore power, wind and solar.

You can use the same regulator (with some add ons) to control solar and wind, some models of the Blue Sky solar controllers can do this.

When I set up my charging system, (including a Sterling Pro), I did ask Blue Sky about using their regulator to control solar and wind, and their advise was to keep separate, as this gives you some redundancy.

What you can do to make things neat, is to connect the outputs from the shore power charger, solar and wind to a single bus bar, and then use a single (large) cable from the bus bar to the battery bank.

My case I have a three outputs from the Sterling Pro, one goes to the start battery, second to the bow thrust batteries, and a third to the bus bar where it connects with the solar and wind regulator outputs, then a single cable to the domestic bank.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Matt sachs

If I go with a Sterling Pro 12v 50A charger, does the solar and wind input go thru it, or is that seperate? If its seperate, it there a unit that will accomadate shore power, solar and wind to charge the bank?

Connect all there charge sources in parallel.

Dave