Shorepower charger connected to start battery not charging house bank

[mitiempo]

Originally Posted by Vags

On a smaller boat where you have a single starter and a single house this may not be a problem. I'm not sure if there's too much disparity between my starter battery and my house bank?? From what I can tell, my starter battery is 12v 1000CCA (I believe that is around 135Ah). My 3 AGM house batteries are 12v 1000CCA 135Ah each.

It makes no difference how large the house bank is. The Bep VSR doesn't know or care. It only works off voltage.

[Vags]

Originally Posted by smac999

run the 2nd output to the house bank. (fused at battery) problem solved.

Originally Posted by smac999

alot of the BEP vsr's are one direction only. you can't just put the charger on the other side. the charger and alt need to be on the same side.

Beautiful. Will look into it! Thank you smac999

[Vags]

Originally Posted by mitiempo

It makes no difference how large the house bank is. The Bep VSR doesn't know or care. It only works off voltage.

Excellent, thank you. Not sure then why the charger is not charging the house bank and going into float or storage mode before the house is completely charged. Maybe as you and smac999 stated it'd be an idea to connect the charger to the house as well.

[Vags]

Originally Posted by Cadence

I will admit total ignorance. It sounds like the charger is seeing the solar charging voltage.

Hmmm.. the solar charger is connected to the house direct. The charger is connected to the starter. the only way that the positive is linked to the starter is via the BEP vsr. There is a cable that comes off the starter positive post and bypasses everything and goes to the battery monitor but that is ok I believe. However, as I'm looking around mapping the boat's wiring I am keeping your comment in mind. Thank you

[Madehn]

simplest solution- use the other positive output on the charger to go to the house battery bank- that is what it is there for. i agree with the comment that it may be that the VSR is seeing a voltage from the solar charging and this is causing it to stop sending current to the house bank-- to test that unplug the solar and see if your charger starts charging the house bank through the VSR-- if so then perhaps you can change the settings as discussed earlier but the easiest solution is to simply wire the charger to both banks- it was designed to sense the different banks independently and should then be able to charge both banks. if none of that works then hook up the charger to the house bank only and install a 1-2-Both switch where you could temporarily couple the house banks and the starter bank together if needed. if you spend a lot of time on the hook, i would be concerned that your alternator is not charging your house bank either because the VSR may not be sending anything to it even if the house bank is significantly discharged. one last thing -- it sometimes helps to make a flow chart of each step in your elcectrical process - what happens in each unit- example -- start bank is below 13.4 volts- charging is all directed to start bank, start bank is >13.4 volts - vsr starts to send power to house bank- house bank reads greater than 13.4 volts- vsr stops sending power to house bank etc-- mapping it out can often highlight a flaw and when you are done you can verify that it is actually happening with a meter-- takes time but you will really understand the system when you are done.

[Vags]

Thank you Madehn. I'm planning to connect a second cable from the charger to the house bank as you said. Also I'm in the process of mapping it all out to give me a clearer idea of what might be happening. My vsr cluster has the vsr module and an on of switch for the house side, an on off switch for the starter side and another switch that puts both into parallel - effectively a 1-2-both I believe. So if I need to only hook up the charger to the house bank then I think the existing switches should do what you mentioned. Interested to disconnect the solar to see what happens. Cheers for that.