Best thing out there now is one of those $50 jump starters. Keeps a charge for 6 months and is ready to go if'n ya need it. Also most of them provide a backup power supply and even a little air compressor. Great insurance for battery failure or whatever (it seems the whatever is what gets us, isn't it?).
Dragging the extension cord can't be as embarrassing as the woman I saw a year or so ago driving along with the gas station fuel nozzle and hose still in her filler.
I'm starting the task of installing a good power management/distribution system and am in the design/investigative stage.I'll have 2 batteries and have some questions for you.We have a discussion about this going on here: http://www.classicaquasport.com/forum/v ... sc&start=0 Here is a question I posted on the forum and a member suggested sending it your way."Here's a question for you: How would a battery charger affect or be affected by the ACR? The obvious charger to buy if you have mutiple batteries would be multi-bank and hook to the individual batteries. The charger is designed to distribute current to the batteries in need up to a max of it's current capability. Some also have maintenance mode so you can leave them on for extended periods of time. With the ACR closing when it senses charging, will it undo or hurt the charger's distribution? Would you not use a multi-bank charger and let the ACR distribute/control the charging? Even with individual on/off switches to open circuitry to each battery, the ACR bypasses all that when it closes. So I'm confused." Would I need a switch (or relay as someone suggested on the forum) to force the ACR Off when charging to allow the dual bank charger to do it's thing?Another question is that what I've read states that your ACR closes when it senses charging. I have also read that some motor's charging systems can be damaged if you try to charge both batteries at the same time, which is what I'm thinking the ACR allows when it closes. Is this true? Does the ACR protect the charging source from being damaged? In the drawing posted on the forum there are 3 on/off switches, two used to control the battery circuits and one to combine.I'm thinking that your Blue Sea 8080 2 Bank Battery Switch Panel can be used to save critical space and also perform the same functions as these 3 switches. The 8080 has an "engine" on/off and what looks like a "house" on/off and also a crossover/combine switch. In the specs it says the house is protected up to 100A - so is what I'm thinking is a on/off switch marked house, a circuit breaker reset switch? If it is an on/off, what happens if it draws more than 100A? Sorry for all the questions.Thanks in advance.Rick
Hello Rick, You raise a number of good questions. Most of the time an ACR and multistage, multiple output battery will play well together. Until recently, the typical multi-output chargers ran one control program, and had settings for only one type of battery. If all of the batteries in the system are similar in style, this works well. Adding an ACR has little effect and all of the outputs were behaving similarly anyway. The typical charger would advance from one charging stage to the next after all of the batteries had completed the previous stage. This could result in having the starting battery remain in the absorption stage longer than it might need to while the house batteries were being brought all the way up, but if the charger was not too aggressive, there wasn't much of a problem. Recently there have been chargers introduced that run different programs for each battery and have multiple output settings to facilitate mixing battery types. One style operates in sequence, feeding one battery for awhile and then moving to the next battery. If you have that style charger, then its function would be interfered with by an ACR. The solution is to limit the ACR to function to work with the alternator and disable it with a relay when the shore charger is active. A small relay with its coil connected to the same source as the charger and its contacts arranged to open the negative connection of the ACR or to provide a disable signal to a control pin depending the the ACR type. All ACR's can be disabled by opening the negative connection, our 7600 and 9112 can be disabled by "grounding" the manual control line, while the 7610 can be disabled by applying positive the the "Start Interrupt" line. I don't know of any chargers or alternators that can be damaged by working with an ACR. The ACR simply connects the batteries to make a single larger bank during charging. Alternators that are sensitive to battery bank size may be light duty units that cannot provide their rated current for the time required to charge all batteries without over heating. These would be unsuitable for marine use. In systems with start and house batteries and no ACR, the standard practice has been to leave a battery selector switch in the "BOTH" position while charging, manually making the same connection that the ACR makes automatically. The ACR does not provide any specific protection for the alternator, except to open when the battery voltage falls, as it might if a load, such as an inverter, exceeds the capacity of the alternator. We offer a number of battery switch panel configurations, and a number of people assemble their battery switch system from individual switches and circuit breakers to suit their needs. The 8080 is very popular with a battery switch for the engine starting circuit, a battery paralleling switch, and a circuit breaker to act as both a switch and circuit protection for the wire feeding the house electrical panel. The circuit breaker is rated at 100A. That means it can protect wire rated at 100A or greater. The circuit breaker will carry higher currents for short periods according to its trip curve, but will trip at about 130A sustained for minutes. Coast Guard and ABYC standards allow the starting circuit to be run without circuit protection but all other wiring needs fuses or circuit breakers for protection. As battery systems get bigger, there are a number of people suggesting that it is appropriate to put some fusing in the starting circuit as well. If you tell me more about your system, I may be able to make other suggestions. There are number of good books on boat wiring by Ed Sherman, Nigel Calder, Don Casey, John Payne and others. You might find advice that helps in their books as well. Best regards, Wayne Kelsoe, PE VP of Electrical EngineeringBlue Sea Systems
Ever since these pix's were posted of the battery wiring I did in Adam's 20ft Mako, I've had request's for a drawing.Well I finally sat down with my nifty software and drew it out.
