ACR not charging Starting Battery.. Need Options

[PGIJon]

My starter battery... a 27DC sealed is not charging while at the dock..... The Shore Charger is profiled for the house batteries which are a pair of flooded 6v golf batteries. What I would like to do is to modify my layout (See attached jpg) to allow the Shore Charger to charge the 27DC directly.. That way it would be profiled correctly and have both the House and the Starter Battery be charged by the alternator when running the engine..... Can I have my Charger and ACR too?

Thanks Jon

 

[dlochner]

Jon,

Yes you can have your ACR and charger too.

Perhaps it is just the drawing, but it looks like you have positive leads going directly to the ground, a practice that is guaranteed not to work.

The instructions for a Blue Sea ACR show the leads to the ACR going directly to the battery. Running them through switches or busbars can induce voltage drop.

Leading the alternator output directly to the battery or positive bus bar will reduce the chance that someone will kill the alternator diodes by switching the batteries off while the engine is running. Best to run the alternator to the house bank when using an ACR.

I don't understand why the 2 1-2-Both switches are needed. There is a 3 switch solution that uses 2 on/off and 1 dual circuit switch. There have been some recent threads on this.

Can your charger have different charging profiles on each of the output terminals?

Have you checked the fuses on the ACR? A blown fuse(s) will prevent the ACR from working. Is the LED on the ACR flashing? If the Start Isolator is not connected it is possible for the inrush to blow the fuses. Under fusing can also be problematic.

On last thing, thanks for posting your question. It helped me to figure out why my start battery isn't charging, I didn't install the start isolator. One more thing on the To do list.

 

[seadaddler]

Everything chargers my house battery my solar,inverter/charger and alternator and so added the ACR from my house bank to my start battery.
Nick

 

[Maine Sail]

The ACR is a simple 3 wire hook up. So long as both banks have interconnected negative's then teh ACR should work. It combines at 13.0V and isolates at 12.8V... Feeding your charger to start is no different than using the ACR it gets the same voltage profile either way... You need to figure out why the start battery is not combining at 13.0V +.... Based on the schematic I am going to guess it is due to the wiring and insertion of switches in the charging path or lack of negative continuity...

Keep It Simple:
ACR should sit between battery banks or their unswitched buses
Alternator should feed house bank or unswitched bus directly
Charger should feed house bank or unswitched bus directly

 

[PGIJon]

Thank you all for the quick replies. I charged the battery directly and the tried to start the engine. The voltage dropped like an Iron Keel with no bolts attached and then realized that the battery was dead.. even though it was just over a year old..... My ProMariner ProNautic 1240P 40 Amp 3 Bank Battery Charger is profiled for the flooded 6v house batteries, so via the ACR the sealed ones were getting the same profile... which is different from the "Sealed" profile. Maybe this caused the sealed battery to go bad quicker..... -Jon

 

[Benny17441]

It depends on how frequently the boat is used; a battery will self discharge at a slow rate but given enough time between recharges it can discharge enough to invite sulfating.

 

[Stu Jackson]

My ProMariner ProNautic 1240P 40 Amp 3 Bank Battery Charger is profiled for the flooded 6v house batteries, so via the ACR the sealed ones were getting the same profile... which is different from the "Sealed" profile. Maybe this caused the sealed battery to go bad quicker....

Probably not, the profiles are very similar.

 

[PGIJon]

Thanks All

Dave... Thanks for your thoughts, Added the picture above that should answer your concerns. I'm going to check out where I actually placed the Alternator wire.

Maine... As always, thank you for your advice & guidance.

Nick... I'm adding a solar panel so I will follow your advice to House.... Noticed your new dock location the other day!

Benny.... Typically we go out several times a month however we were hit with a tornado in March and had to fabricate a new bow pulpit which was finally completed and installed on Friday.

Stu... Thanks.. I was wondering