"house" Battery charging

FlyWright said:

Angus, you're my hero! Sounds like the perfect system for your circumstances. If I didn't have to fish, I'd have more money to throw at my electrical system. But, since I do...



Goodonya!!!

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And you are mine, sir, with your much healthier priorities!

I set my single engine boat up with 2 separate batteries and 2 alternators. The start battery (only for the engine) is a single AGM that is charged off the engines original 75 amp alternator. The house bank is 1000 amp hours of T105 Trojan deep cycle batteries. They are charged by a 220 amp Leece Neville alternator with a Sterling 3 stage voltage regulator. Everything including the 3KW inverter / battery charger runs off the house bank. There is a battery switch that allows the 2 banks to be combined in the event of an alternator failure or dead engine starting battery. Pretty simple system with no switching required in normal operation.

Generator has it's own battery and alternator and can recharge the house bank through the inverter / battery charger.



Ted

My boat is a single engine, and I have a house bank, and start battery for the engine, and a start battery for the generator.

I think my system is pretty simple in that I have a three bank AC charger that I run off of the generator or shore power when not running the engine. The three bank AC charger charges the house, main engine, and generator. When running the engine, a charge relay directs charge to either the house bank or the main engine start bank.

If I have to combine the house with the main engine start circuit, I have a battery switch for that purpose. The charge relay is the key to the system, and so far I've been very happy with how it works.

Conall

prairieoyster said:

how many keep a 2 seperate banks of batteries? 1 for house and 1 for starting an engine?

Do you have a different charging source for each set of batteries?
ie: automotive style alternator for starting battery and a "smart alternator/ Voltage control regulator" for the deep cycle ones?

I have been reading Nigel Calder's textbook, and I wonder how much of his theory is actually in practice?

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I have a start bank (one battery) and a house bank (four batteries). They are charged by the engine alternator and connected and separated by a battery combiner (automatic charging relay).

Simple but it works all by itself. No switches to remember.

Nigel Calder's book? It's OK but I'm not fond of his style.

FlyWright said:

Then I found the 30A charger insufficient so I replaced it with a single bank 55A charger connected directly to the house and via Yandina combiner to the start.

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Al, I am about to ADD a charger to my boat. Why did you REPLACE yours instead of add one??? You could have had 85amps of charging instead of 55?

Baker said:

Al, I am about to ADD a charger to my boat. Why did you REPLACE yours instead of add one??? You could have had 85amps of charging instead of 55?

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John,

I wanted to jump in here and let you know that I once had the same idea, but was told by the manufacturer, Xantrex in this case, that the only way this will work is if the chargers are 'stackable' meaning they synchronize their charging profiles (bulk, absorption, float etc.) and voltages. This prevents one charger from assuming a fully charged battery because it mistakenly ‘reads’ the voltage of the other charger.

I would absolutely check with both manufacturers if different, and get the advice of their tech support folks before making the connection. I would also want them to be in warranty

manyboats said:

Richard,
You wrote in post #16 "We switch to the start bank to start, stay that way for 10-20 minutes while the windlass raises the anchor and we get the start bank recharged, then switch to the house bank."

Why do you do that?
Do you want a tad more speed on the anchor winch?
Are you afraid of running the start batt down?

I always switch the start selector to house right after starting. I have a Xantrex as pictured in Al's post above. May be different but when we bought the Xantrex 10 years ago they said it would take care of that and the start batt remains charged .... always. And even when it's cold in Alaska I never employed both banks to start the engine.

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Hi Eric,

The whole boat runs from and charges to whichever bank or banks we are switched to. We have a Xantrex Link 2000 which monitors both start and house banks. No combiner or genset. The start bank needs some recharging after cranking our fairly large diesel. With the engine running we're generating 50 amps or more. The windlass runs very well on the start bank with engine running.

Usually by a few minutes after the anchor is up the Link shows the start bank recharged. Then we switch to house and forget it until the next time we need to start.

Only time we switch to both is the rare occasion of the start bank not being fully up to snuff for one reason or another.

Seems to work. Does that make sense to you?

LarryM said:

John,

I wanted to jump in here and let you know that I once had the same idea, but was told by the manufacturer, Xantrex in this case, that the only way this will work is if the chargers are 'stackable' meaning they synchronize their charging profiles (bulk, absorption, float etc.) and voltages. This prevents one charger from assuming a fully charged battery because it mistakenly ‘reads’ the voltage of the other charger.

I would absolutely check with both manufacturers if different, and get the advice of their tech support folks before making the connection. I would also want them to be in warranty

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I actually am not doing the work. A friend is. And he is probably the best marine electrician in this area. I would assume you could somehow isolate what the chargers charge and what they read by the way you wire it. But electrical is my absolute worst system knowledge so that is why I am farming it out. I seriously doubt he is just wiring the two to jam current into the batteries...but I do not know. I will ask him. He is the one who suggested it because I thought the exact same thing as what you are saying.

Ultimately, I am adding an inverter. There are very few choices in the "inverter only" market. No offense, but Xantrex is not very high on my list. And he agrees. I have owned them...and have had to replace them. He suggested Magnum Energy(MS2000) which is an inverter/charger. It has 100amp charger and a 2000 watt True Sine Wave inverter along with a controller and monitor. Not cheap stuff. I already have a Charles 80amp Charger. My battery bank is 525a/h. AGMs can handle up to half of their rated storage and by talking on the phone to Odyssey, my battery's maker, they say you WANT a lot of power going into the bank to charge because that is how AGMs desulfate. She flinched when I said I "only"" had 80amps to charge this bank. Now I will have 180 and that will likely be better for the health of the batteries as well as charge much quicker. In the end, this is not about the charger. It is about getting an inverter.

But if you want an explanation on how he is gonna wire this up, I will ask. He says he has done it on numerous boats. He is actually a member on here, but not active.

Baker said:

Ultimately, I am adding an inverter. He suggested Magnum Energy(MS2000) which is an inverter/charger. It has 100amp charger and a 2000 watt True Sine Wave inverter along with a controller and monitor. Not cheap stuff.

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John, I'm interested to know how you like the inverter part of the unit. I have the ME3112 inverter charger which is a modified sine wave unit. The Nepresso machine and the microwave don't like it, and I will be adding a TV shortly. For $1,450 I can replace it with the MS2812, for supposedly pure sine wave. Would really like to hear how well your unit works with frequency sensitive equipment, before switching

Ted

O C Diver said:

John, I'm interested to know how you like the inverter part of the unit. I have the ME3112 inverter charger which is a modified sine wave unit. The Nepresso machine and the microwave don't like it, and I will be adding a TV shortly. For $1,450 I can replace it with the MS2812, for supposedly pure sine wave. Would really like to hear how well your unit works with frequency sensitive equipment, before switching

Ted

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Will let you know. It should be done by the end of next week. I did read as many reviews on the web as I could find and they are all very good. I did not see anything less than 4 stars and the very vast majority is 5. Search amazon for it and you can read some reviews. I hear that Magnum is the people from Heart that fled when Xantrex bought Heart.

Baker said:

Al, I am about to ADD a charger to my boat. Why did you REPLACE yours instead of add one??? You could have had 85amps of charging instead of 55?

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My 30A charger was undersized when working properly then it started to act up, providing less and less charge as time went on. I worked with it for a while trying to troubleshoot the issue. Finally, I took it home to test it and found the problem was the charger, not the installation or connections. Once replaced, the problems went away. It's still onboard, but disconnected. All I can get out of it is a little trickle charge.

I'm in LarryM's camp about 'stacking' charger leads. Unless there's something like a centerfielder managing the two charges, I thought one strong charger would trick the lesser voltage charger into thinking the battery is fully charged and its charge is not needed.

Often, multibank chargers split the charge to each bank. If I had 2 working chargers, I'd split them to different banks to maximize their effectiveness. But with my combiner, I find I don't really need a multi bank charger.

Baker said:

I actually am not doing the work. A friend is. And he is probably the best marine electrician in this area. I would assume you could somehow isolate what the chargers charge and what they read by the way you wire it. But electrical is my absolute worst system knowledge so that is why I am farming it out. I seriously doubt he is just wiring the two to jam current into the batteries...but I do not know. I will ask him. He is the one who suggested it because I thought the exact same thing as what you are saying.

Ultimately, I am adding an inverter. There are very few choices in the "inverter only" market. No offense, but Xantrex is not very high on my list. And he agrees. I have owned them...and have had to replace them. He suggested Magnum Energy(MS2000) which is an inverter/charger. It has 100amp charger and a 2000 watt True Sine Wave inverter along with a controller and monitor. Not cheap stuff. I already have a Charles 80amp Charger. My battery bank is 525a/h. AGMs can handle up to half of their rated storage and by talking on the phone to Odyssey, my battery's maker, they say you WANT a lot of power going into the bank to charge because that is how AGMs desulfate. She flinched when I said I "only"" had 80amps to charge this bank. Now I will have 180 and that will likely be better for the health of the batteries as well as charge much quicker. In the end, this is not about the charger. It is about getting an inverter.

But if you want an explanation on how he is gonna wire this up, I will ask. He says he has done it on numerous boats. He is actually a member on here, but not active.

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John,

Keep us posted with the details. Sounds like it will be a great system, and you are in good hands.

You may remember, Boomarang had a 40A Xantrex charger which failed in 2011. I found a 'factory refurb' on eBay for cheap and it is still working. I keep waiting for it to go up in smoke, but it won't die. Now, having said that, I'm sure it will croak this weekend . . . .

When it dies, and I'm sure it will, I will replace it with a Mastervolt or Charles smart charger.

There is a small no-name 700W inverter installed that provides some basic AC away from the dock and of course, the generator when more power is needed. Unfortunately, there is just no room for more battery capacity to power a larger inverter.

O C Diver said:

John, I'm interested to know how you like the inverter part of the unit. I have the ME3112 inverter charger which is a modified sine wave unit. The Nepresso machine and the microwave don't like it, and I will be adding a TV shortly. For $1,450 I can replace it with the MS2812, for supposedly pure sine wave. Would really like to hear how well your unit works with frequency sensitive equipment, before switching

Ted

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Ted: I have the Magnum 2812 and the microwave runs fine on it. We don't have a tv so can't comment on that appliance. The readout on the remote indicates the power is rock solid at 120 volts and 60hz while inverting.


Jim
Sent from my iPad using Trawler Forum

JDCAVE said:

Ted: I have the Magnum 2812 and the microwave runs fine on it. We don't have a tv so can't comment on that appliance. The readout on the remote indicates the power is rock solid at 120 volts and 60hz while inverting.


Jim
Sent from my iPad using Trawler Forum

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Thanks Jim, appreciate the input.
My microwave will run on my ME3112 although a little noisier (I'm sure it's not happy). The electronics in my Nepresso machine won't work right on it. While the voltage and hz are important, the smoothness of the curves on the top and bottom of the sine wave, are what's important to the more sensitive electronics. Both my lap top and my all in one computer are fine with the modified square wave because of the buffered power supplies. Really want to hear how non buffered power supplies work with it.

Ted

djones44; said:

I have a vintage vessel...

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If 1986 is vintage, most here must be about lookin' like that mummified chap in another thread.

In any event, nice boat.

Baker said:

Will let you know. It should be done by the end of next week. I did read as many reviews on the web as I could find and they are all very good. I did not see anything less than 4 stars and the very vast majority is 5. Search amazon for it and you can read some reviews. I hear that Magnum is the people from Heart that fled when Xantrex bought Heart.

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John, I added a Charles 100 amp charger, batt monitor and small cheap 1500 watt inverter. I have 420 AH on the house side and 92 AH on the engine start side. This setup worked well for us for the 8 months we spent on the boat.
With only 210 AH available on the house side I found I had to charge the batts 2x a day for about and hour and a half each time. As it turned out this worked out OK as we used the TV in the early morning and evening anyway requiring the genny.

This whole set up costs me < $2000 with me doing all the work. The cabling for the cheap inverter costs me more than the inverter. We used the inverter infrequently but it came in handy for making toast, charging the computers and using the printer. I did use the inverter (mod sine wave) for watching TV but that also required powering the Sat box and Track it TV antenna, but with only 210 AH of available power (actually less because I ddin't let the batts get below 70% SOC) watching TV sucked too much power so I just started the jenny.

Putting a ton of money in batts, inverters and chargers seems counter productive to me when you already have a genny.

timjet said:

John, I added a Charles 100 amp charger, batt monitor and small cheap 1500 watt inverter. I have 420 AH on the house side and 92 AH on the engine start side. This setup worked well for us for the 8 months we spent on the boat.
With only 210 AH available on the house side I found I had to charge the batts 2x a day for about and hour and a half each time. As it turned out this worked out OK as we used the TV in the early morning and evening anyway requiring the genny.

This whole set up costs me < $2000 with me doing all the work. The cabling for the cheap inverter costs me more than the inverter. We used the inverter infrequently but it came in handy for making toast, charging the computers and using the printer. I did use the inverter (mod sine wave) for watching TV but that also required powering the Sat box and Track it TV antenna, but with only 210 AH of available power (actually less because I ddin't let the batts get below 70% SOC) watching TV sucked too much power so I just started the jenny.

Putting a ton of money in batts, inverters and chargers seems counter productive to me when you already have a genny.

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Thanks for the info, Tim. I really am questioning my expenditure on this one but my main reason for doing it is the icemaker. The ice maker is one of the most important pieces of equipment on my boat... ...and I don't want to have to run the generator just to keep the ice maker running...or to charge phones and computers. The microwave will be a luxury as well. When you put pen to paper it really isn't worth it. But I bought a very expensive diesel powered ice maker surrounded in comfortable fiberglass.

With that said, the friend that is doing the work doesn't do anything half ass. So it is all top of the line gear including controller and SOC panel. TO make it more worth it, him and another friend have come up with a horn system that uses a Home Depot pancake compressor and a giant horn. I have always had horn envy because it is a horn worthy of a cruise ship....now I will install one. That further rationalizes the expenditure... All said, I will be into it a little over $3k with HIM doing the work. And that gives me a true sine wave inverter along with a 100 amp charger.

Do you have AGMs??? If so you can take them down well past 70%.

For whoever was talking about stacking chargers...The way he explained to me:

Ok let's take my battery bank....420ah. If the batteries are calling for 250 amps and I have 100+80 amps of charger, both chargers will go full bore until they get to 180 amps....in which case one of the chargers will get knocked back off of bulk. The more powerful charger will end up being the float charger.

He has installed a BUNCH of these chargers and he says their 4 step profile is a LOT better than your average 3 step. Not only that, it will take the float charge off of the battery and then monitor its state and then hit it with a float charge to bring it back up. This way, your battery is not continuously being charged.

BUT, with all that said, I will likely leave the 80 amp charger off unless I need it after a deep discharge or in need of a very quick charge.

Baker said:

But I bought a very expensive diesel powered ice maker surrounded in comfortable fiberglass.

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Ahhh, now that makes sense and explains a lot.

For $3G's you're doing very good. My Charles 100 amp 3 bank charger was $1200 + probably another $300 in cabling and fuses. I mounted it behind the stove where there is a lot of unused space. Additionally I mounted it in such a way that you can see the amp meter on the charger when you remove the trash can mounted in the galley counter. I found being able to see the amp meter very helpful in determining what the charger and batts are doing, especially when the charger reaches the float stage.

Be very careful relying solely on your battery monitor's SOC reading. It is only accurate if it's calibrated correctly. I have 4 105 AH AGM's that make up the house bank. That's a total of 420 AH in theory but when I calibrated the monitor the batts were not all new. So I estimated the AH capacity of the bank at 380AH. But that's just an estimate and knowing that every time the batts go through a charge and discharge cycle they loose some of their capacity, it's impossible to really know what the bank capacity is. So I just discharge to 70% SOC. That works out to about 1.5 hrs genny charging twice per day. My original power hogging refrig probably sucks up 90% of those amps.

As you know I removed the ice maker for storage space. We bought a Yeti cooler and fill it with ice and drinks. Ice lasts almost 3 days in summer, a week in winter. It resides on the sundeck and doubles as a guest seat with the cushion we got for it. For 2 people our ice needs are modest. 2 drinks a day each, so our refrig can make plenty of ice for us. That doesn't include beer, don't ask how much beer we, er I drink.

Concerning the ability to stack chargers, I call Charles about that and as I remember they said it was OK, but I don't remember how the chargers handle it. I just leave the CB for the original 30 amp charger off.

Your air horn (pun intended) sounds very cool. I bet you can't wait to see the reaction when you pass that sailboat and give him 2 blasts to warn him you're passing him on your starboard side.

timjet said:

Ahhh, now that makes sense and explains a lot.

For $3G's you're doing very good. My Charles 100 amp 3 bank charger was $1200 + probably another $300 in cabling and fuses. I mounted it behind the stove where there is a lot of unused space. Additionally I mounted it in such a way that you can see the amp meter on the charger when you remove the trash can mounted in the galley counter. I found being able to see the amp meter very helpful in determining what the charger and batts are doing, especially when the charger reaches the float stage.

Be very careful relying solely on your battery monitor's SOC reading. It is only accurate if it's calibrated correctly. I have 4 105 AH AGM's that make up the house bank. That's a total of 420 AH in theory but when I calibrated the monitor the batts were not all new. So I estimated the AH capacity of the bank at 380AH. But that's just an estimate and knowing that every time the batts go through a charge and discharge cycle they loose some of their capacity, it's impossible to really know what the bank capacity is. So I just discharge to 70% SOC. That works out to about 1.5 hrs genny charging twice per day. My original power hogging refrig probably sucks up 90% of those amps.

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Our set up is obviously similar because our boats are similar. I have the same 105x4 batteries. My Charles is 80 amps and the new charger is 100 so my charge times "should" be cut in half. I do hear you on the battery monitor. My batteries are Odyssey(Sears Die Hard Premium Marine) GRP31. They are 3 years old so I might "de rate" them as well.

I put it in the old liquor cabinet. The entertainment system cabinet just to the left of the liquor cabinet had an old CRT TV and VCR and all that stuff. I threw it all away since it was so old and it left two big storage spaces. I can store my booze in that area while using the liquor cabinet for the inverter. It is also only about 5 feet from the batteries and about the same to the electrical panel. The SOC panel I will be using is the one linked below. It has all kinds of functions including "canned" charging profiles as well as custom ones if you cared to call your battery manufacturer and ask the preferred rates for each stage of charging. It is pretty slick!!!

http://www.magnum-dimensions.com/sites/default/files/MagArchive/64-0003-Rev-F-ME-RC_Web.pdf