DC System Discovery

Sep 28, 2008
922
Canadian Sailcraft CS27 Victoria B.C.
I have not seen the Charles combiner. I sell both Blue Seas and Victrom battery combiners. The Blue Seas is potted in epoxy and is virtually waterproof. I have never seen a failure for any reason. Blue Seas is very hard to beat.
 
Sep 28, 2008
922
Canadian Sailcraft CS27 Victoria B.C.
The Balmar Centfielder requires an external reg for each alternator - either the MC-612 or MC-614 I think. It is not really needed - the 2 alts can be run into the same bank without it. In bulk the bank will accept the total of the 2 alts output - assuming it can. One of the controllers will reach its set point first - even set the same - but by then the bank is accepting less current so it makes no difference.
 
Last edited:
May 16, 2007
1,509
Boatless ! 26 Ottawa, Ontario
I have a Sterling battery charger and it works great. We had a Sterling external regulator on our Electromaxx alternator. The Sterling died after about a year. We replaced it with a Balmar (Sterling did not stand behind their product) and are very pleased with it.
Bob
 

Bob846

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Jun 7, 2004
39
Beneteau 423 Long Beach/Los Angeles
Tried to follow the threads to get some specifics, but many of my friends have similar setups. First: I assume you have 12v starters; most boats this size have 24v starters. Second, I assume both alternators are 12v-based; most boats this size will have a 24v alternator one engine to charge the starting bank, and the other engine (and genset) will have a 12v alternator to help charge the 12v house bank. Just wanted to be sure that everything is really 12v-based.
 
Sep 20, 2015
123
Navigator 4200 Classic New Bern, NC
Why not just use 2 A/B/Both switches.
My apologies, but I am just now giving this a second look. This MIGHT be a very good solution for this. It sure would decrease the amount of wires I need to build and won't increase the footprint of the battery switches I already have in place.

Here is the new drawing reflecting your idea:
upload_2016-2-17_15-28-9.jpeg