Hi All! After much research, reading, you-tube vid's and phone calls to Blue Sea Systems.. I think I somewhat understand how this works and it sure sounds great. However, does anyone have one installed? and - Did you change the selection switch out to the on-off one they supply? Thanks Capt.Rob
Selection switch? The 7610 ACR, which is appropriate for your boat, is a simple three wire hook up, unless you want to use the SI (start isolation) feature.
The 7610 will work with any battery switch set up you have. You do not need the "Dual Circuit Plus" battery switch. The "Dual Circuit Plus" is an easy ON/OFF but lacks the ability to properly isolate a bad battery bank and only leaves you with the "COMBINE" option in an emergency..
An ML-ACR uses a Contura switch, an industry standard switch, but the ML-ACR would be overkill for a P303.
The ACR simply sits between the house and start banks and charges both, by paralleling them, whenever charging is present. It isolates the banks when there is no charging.
#1 Run all charge sources to the house bank or preferably its always on busbar, solar, alternator, battery charger, inverter charger, wind etc.. For a cruising boat you don't want to feed charge current to the start battery first or you can suffer from
relay cycling.
#2 Install ACR between house and start banks using the correct gauge wire and fuses within 7" of each battery banks positive terminal using an (ANL, MRBF or Class T fuse.
#3 Run a negative wire to the negative bus with a fuse in its lead.
#4 Run an SI wire to the ignition switch, if you have a dedicated/isolated starting only bank. No need if you have a 1/2/B switch.
#5 Done
Making Sense of Automatic Charging Relays