Kicker to downrigger (house) battery?

[the force]

Hey team, just making some mods on a new to me boat (23’ Sylvan Offshore). It’s got 2 size 24 batts, the second currently only connected to 2 Scotty downriggers. Purchased a blue sea add a battery kit to allow simultaneous charging of both batteries off the main (5.7L mercruiser) and am thinking it would also be good to connect my kicker (2004 25hp Nissan) to the DR batter with the intent of keeping some charge on it (I assume it’s got an alternator but not sure the output). Am I on the right track here or anything else to consider?
Thanks.

 

[bigdogg1]

If I remember one of the many Blue Sea schematics I looked at during a similar install, it as one battery serving 2 motors (ie main and kicker ) and everything else running through the House battery.

I called Blue Sea and the guy told me that they recommend separating all motors on one side and all house (including riggers) on the other.

Don’t fully understand the why but have never had an issue.

For peace of mind, I also added a small Blue Sea voltmeter to the house so I could track its voltage on longer days. I did run a house battery down once and that caused all sorts of chaos with my electronics.

 

[the force]

If I remember one of the many Blue Sea schematics I looked at during a similar install, it as one battery serving 2 motors (ie main and kicker ) and everything else running through the House battery.

I called Blue Sea and the guy told me that they recommend separating all motors on one side and all house (including riggers) on the other.

Don’t fully understand the why but have never had an issue.

For peace of mind, I also added a small Blue Sea voltmeter to the house so I could track its voltage on longer days. I did run a house battery down once and that caused all sorts of chaos with my electronics.

Hmm, interesting… I suppose the charge off the kicker would go to both batts through the control modual, however being that it won’t be high amps I would think directly to the one battery would be better. Thanks for sharing

 

[zurk]

ive had several bad experiences with the blue sea add a battery kit. it has weird disconnect behavior. mine left me stranded twice after which i threw it out. the one with the yellow tabs is the bad one, the one with black tabs is fine.
i would just put the charge into your starting battery from main and kicker and add on a victron orion tr smart 30A DC to DC isolated for charging your house bank from the starting bank. its much cleaner that way.

 

[the force]

ive had several bad experiences with the blue sea add a battery kit. it has weird disconnect behavior. mine left me stranded twice after which i threw it out. the one with the yellow tabs is the bad one, the one with black tabs is fine.
i would just put the charge into your starting battery from main and kicker and add on a victron orion tr smart 30A DC to DC isolated for charging your house bank from the starting bank. its much cleaner that way.

****, this is the first negative review I’ve heard about the blue sea though my research wasn’t super extensive… you’d think it would work for $250! Yellow tabs is the one I ordered.

 

[SpringVelocity]

Hey team, just making some mods on a new to me boat (23’ Sylvan Offshore). It’s got 2 size 24 batts, the second currently only connected to 2 Scotty downriggers. Purchased a blue sea add a battery kit to allow simultaneous charging of both batteries off the main (5.7L mercruiser) and am thinking it would also be good to connect my kicker (2004 25hp Nissan) to the DR batter with the intent of keeping some charge on it (I assume it’s got an alternator but not sure the output). Am I on the right track here or anything else to consider?
Thanks.

Your on the right track the ACR will do everything for you. They work great.

 

[bigdogg1]

Your on the right track the ACR will do everything for you. They work great.

Totally agree with SV. I have installed the setup in my last 3 boats and for peace of mind, it is so simple to start the day by simply switching from On to Off. The one caveat I will say is that adding the little Blue Sea Voltmeter up in the dash from the house run is super helpful.

I did run into the weird lock out situation mentioned earlier. Trolled for hours on the 9.9. lots of house draw happening when suddenly the finders turned off and no juice to bring up the down riggers. Actually managed to contact Blue Sea who basically explained that at a certain low voltage, the ACR will lock out the low battery.

By adding the voltmeter, I can tell when trolling what my house battery is at constantly.

 

[the force]

Totally agree with SV. I have installed the setup in my last 3 boats and for peace of mind, it is so simple to start the day by simply switching from On to Off. The one caveat I will say is that adding the little Blue Sea Voltmeter up in the dash from the house run is super helpful.

I did run into the weird lock out situation mentioned earlier. Trolled for hours on the 9.9. lots of house draw happening when suddenly the finders turned off and no juice to bring up the down riggers. Actually managed to contact Blue Sea who basically explained that at a certain low voltage, the ACR will lock out the low battery.

By adding the voltmeter, I can tell when trolling what my house battery is at constantly.

So in this situation I assume only the house battery was locked out- you could start the main via starting battery and then main would charge house battery via acr until above the lock-out threshold? Or do you actually need to plug in and charge house battery to get unlocked?

This triggers a second question - can anyone comment on how long a single size 24 can run downriggers? I understand highly dependent on situation but would like to be up and down in say 100’ or water for say 5 hours w/o worrying about starting my main. Currently I only have the riggers on the 24 and minimal other house use.

 

[bigdogg1]

So in this situation I assume only the house battery was locked out- you could start the main via starting battery and then main would charge house battery via acr until above the lock-out threshold? Or do you actually need to plug in and charge house battery to get unlocked?

This triggers a second question - can anyone comment on how long a single size 24 can run downriggers? I understand highly dependent on situation but would like to be up and down in say 100’ or water for say 5 hours w/o worrying about starting my main. Currently I only have the riggers on the 24 and minimal other house use.

Exactly right. I had changed my wiring from past practice to completely isolate the main. It started fine but due to a time constraint, I couldn’t drive long enough to charge it back up.

 

[sly_karma]

I did run into the weird lock out situation mentioned earlier. Trolled for hours on the 9.9. lots of house draw happening when suddenly the finders turned off and no juice to bring up the down riggers. Actually managed to contact Blue Sea who basically explained that at a certain low voltage, the ACR will lock out the low battery.

Had this experience several times as well. A weak/failing house battery was the main culprit. But I do observe that the threshold voltage for the ACR to contact and allow charge to go to the house seems overly high for fishing use. Trolling speeds on my kicker don't always create enough charging current to get the ACR to connect the house. Running sonar with a 1 kW transducer isn't trivial, add some downrigger use and it's possible to deplete the house battery and suddenly screens go blank.

There does seem to be some fuzziness around the ACR behavior though. I've taken to running kicker at relatively high rpm for a few minutes while I set up gear, and that usually gets the ACR to connect to the house and throw some electrons into it. Then throttle down to troll speed and usually it stays connected and all is good. Last month on Osoyoos sockeye with slow troll speeds like 1.5 mph I didn't even try, just threw the main switch to the Emergency position (both batteries combined) for the entire session.

I tweaked the data overlay settings on my two MFDs so that one shows start battery voltage and the other shows house. Easy to see when kicker isn't sending anything to house.

 

[Fixit]

ive installed 6 blue seas adda battery kits in various boats. from single inboard/ 2 batteries to twin outboards w/ 2 starts and 3 house batteries.
I have never heard of a bad ACR. I would suspect that if it did a low low voltage disconnect that it did so not in error but because your house was having issues, either bad cell or way discharged.

but the beautiful thing with the kit is your start battery is fully charged to crank your engines to get home. and if you really must connect your starts to your house bank you just emergency combine at the switch

 

[zurk]

in my case the blue seas yellow discharged both batteries.
the black one worked ok until that too left me stranded.
of course my system is a mixed li/agm so the blue seas got totally confused.

 

[Fixit]

in my case the blue seas yellow discharged both batteries.
the black one worked ok until that too left me stranded.
of course my system is a mixed li/agm so the blue seas got totally confused.

how did it discharge two batteries? all it does is make or break a connection between the two... sounds like you need a DC to DC charger to cope with the li battery

 

[BC Coast Pilot]

An ACR does not direct the charge to the battery that “needs it the most” or has the lowest terminal voltage. If there is a charge present on either battery, indicated by a high enough voltage, the ACR will combine the batteries.

how did it discharge two batteries? all it does is make or break a connection between the two... sounds like you need a DC to DC charger to cope with the li battery

 

[zurk]

it detected agm starter voltage incorrectly and drained it into the house li bank. then it couldn't parallel enough for engine start.

 

[BC Coast Pilot]

it detected agm starter voltage incorrectly and drained it into the house li bank. then it couldn't parallel enough for engine start.

As the lithium holds a higher voltage do you think its likely that the ACR thought it was charging and combined the batteries? Which in turn drained both banks?

 

[zurk]

As the lithium holds a higher voltage do you think its likely that the ACR thought it was charging and combined the batteries? Which in turn drained both banks?

probably. dunno for sure but i do know its done it enough and stranded me enough so i got rid of it. best to do it properly with a dc to dc charger instead of this sort of unreliable solution. victron makes some nice orion tr isolated dc to dc chargers which arent that much more money. and a dc to dc wont leave you stranded.