Battery Switch Location & charging system

[Eyes Up Chuck]

I want to relocate my battery switch from the bilge area to the cuddy.

I have a dual battery setup worth a current switch (1,2, both,off) and may be upgrading to a Blue Sea ACR setup.

I'd also like to connect my CTEK 7001 battery charger so I can just plug it in at the dock over night.

Any suggestions, thoughts would be very helpful.

 

[noluck]

i have the blue sea add a battery package and i love it, turn on the battery switch and everything is isolated and charges perfect

 

[AlK]

i have the blue sea add a battery package and i love it, turn on the battery switch and everything is isolated and charges perfect

X 2

 

[pescador]

x 3...on or off no more figuring out where to place switch.

 

[spring fever]

X4 love the system!!

 

[bigdogeh]

blueseas acr setup is awesome. you'll never regret it. it can be used with your 1,2,off, both switch to save a bit of money. the other switch does simplify it a bit.

 

[bones]

thoughts:
bringing the switch further away from the power source, you may need to increase your wire size due to line loss. not increasing you AWG would decrease your voltage. google a marine calculator and look into the voltage drop based on IR=V. also look into your starting circuit and charging circuit as they are high circuit crkts and moving the switch may affect there wire size as well. most boat manufacturers have the switch close to supply and load (alternator and starter because it is cheaper to wire)

 

[sly_karma]

The ACR system is the way to go for sure, but see if you can keep the switch aft so you have short runs to batteries and engines. As Bones says, you'll need to upsize the wiring and it will get expensive fast. Check out the wiring diagram for the Blue Seas unit, you'll need at least four runs between switch/ACR and the batteries. Not hard to that being 6 AWG for a boat in the 17-21 ft range. The wire sizing chart will tell you, just remember the length is the total circuit length, ie, distance between terminals x 2.

If space is an issue aft and you don't see a good place to mount the hardware, you can epoxy a small piece of starboard (or Walmart's finest kitchen cutting board) to the hull to make a mounting plate for the shutoff switch, ACR, fuses, negative bus bar, etc. You'll probably want to have a fuse block up front so then it's a run of slightly lighter gauge wire, either #8 or #10 depending on the hull length and power loads.

 

[casper5280]

X2 on what sky_karma said. That is how I did my system. I mounted a fuse block up front and one in the rear. Left the switch in the back, all mounted on Starboard, and all BlueSeas components, plus the ACR. If the switch is in the back the battery wires are shorter, once you start running those to the front it can get very expensive.

 

[aheny]

I also use a blue seas add a battery. The shut off switch is close to the helm. I moved everything so I can do all of my checks without opening the bilge.

If you want some ideas about efficient cabling routing feel free to PM me, my background is in electrical engineering

 

[staying alive]

I rewired my boat and used all blue sea stuff including the acr , love it . However my acr makes a clicking sound , 1 click every 5 minutes or so , whether my built in battery charger is plugged in or not. Very strange , everything still works ok I wonder if this is a prelude to a failure, should I just bite the bullet and replace. Anybody experienced this condition

 

[bigdogeh]

I rewired my boat and used all blue sea stuff including the acr , love it . However my acr makes a clicking sound , 1 click every 5 minutes or so , whether my built in battery charger is plugged in or not. Very strange , everything still works ok I wonder if this is a prelude to a failure, should I just bite the bullet and replace. Anybody experienced this condition

interesting...
ny acr's are under my engine hatches so I don't think i would hear them with the engines running. I would think the clicking would be the sounds of the relays cutting in and out when a battery is looking for charge or dropping off from being fully charged. if you wanted to experiment there are spade tabs on the acr's that are there to hook up led lights to indicate when the relays are turning on and when they are turning off. you could hook up the led's and see if they correspond with the clicking noises. but that's what I would guess. i have the led's wired up to my dash and it's a nice indicator when I see them light up and turn off. it's basically showing me my systems working properly....

 

[staying alive]

It's weird ,I can put my hand on the acr and feel the click so I know it's coming from there , I also have the led light hooked up to the dashboard. It didn't start doing it till about a year after I installed

 

[ericl]

Devil is in the details. Blue Sea says the ACR will charge 2 battery banks. If you were to call them I highly doubt that they would recommend the ACR for charging multiple banks of dissimilar battery types (such as a deep cycle and starting battery).
Your plug-in CTEK is capable of charging a deep cycle; your boat engine is not. If the above is true, Blue Sea will likely refer you to www.balmar.net.

 

[staying alive]

This is an old thread but was looking through my account and figured I would give the update in case it helps someone else.
The mysterious clicking sound was my ACR telling me that one of my batteries was worn out . Took them both into CT and they said the house one was done.
Replaced battery and now no clicking sound
I hate it when the machine is smarter than me

 

[Sharphooks]

One thing to take note of with the Blue Seas ACR: there is a parasitic draw, even with the battery selector shut to "off".

If your boat sits for long periods of time without a trickle charger, there is a circuit on the ACR that exists to install an "on" and "off" switch (to shut-off the parasitic draw)

I installed that switch for peace of mind....HOWEVER.....it's easy to forget to turn it back "ON" again after firing up the boat and going fishing. Result: The main engine will only charge the starter battery; the house gets run down by your marine electronics and causes havoc with any item (like a chartplotter) that requires minimum 12 V to operate properly.

Don't ask me how I know.....

And another unintended consequence of installing a Blue Seas ACR:

A Blue Seas ACR System automatically combines batteries during charging, isolates batteries when discharging and when starting engines. It also promotes equal charges in all batteries wired to the system... so, if one is drawn down, it will feed voltage from the stronger battery to the weaker one to equalize them....

So last summer, I left my VHF radio on all night. I got in the boat at 5 AM, fired up the main and left Bamfield to go fishing. As I ran to the grounds, the alternator on my Suzuki was operating correctly but because the Blue Seas ACR noted the voltage drop in the house battery, it started feeding power into the weaker battery faster then the Suzuki alternator could make up the lost voltage in the starter battery

Result: the starter battery fell slightly below 12 V as the house battery got juiced back up: result: I LOST MY FLY-BY-WIRE SHIFTING CAPABILITIES DUE TO VOLTAGE DROP

My Suzuki fell into neutral at ideal speed; the throttle and shifter were absolutely useless due to the voltage drop and I was totally dead in the water out on South Bank. And because the house battery was still depleted, I didn't have enough juice to operate the electric tilt of my kicker---totally dead in the water

I had to tell that story just so peeps with an ACR units installed in their boats understand the pluses and minuses of this type of electrical system. A guy at the marina that services my Suzuki says he steers his customers away from them for precisely the reasons I mentioned above.

 

[AlK]

One thing to take note of with the Blue Seas ACR: there is a parasitic draw, even with the battery selector shut to "off".

I was aware of this potential problem when I installed the ACR system. I wired mine a little differently than what was shown by Blue Seas. My batteries are hooked up to the switch first and then the power goes to the ACR, hence when the switch is off the ACR can not monitor the batteries and therefore no power draw.

Thank you for pointing out your other observation, I was not aware that.

 

[staying alive]

Sharp hooks that’s a scary story , I wonder what Bluesea would have to comment . Never thought of that scenario with fly by wire , now I’m glad my motor is old . I would say Bluesea needs to up their game and come up with a fix

 

[Wild Bill]

I agree the acr stuff has some neat features and not that expensive however for 35 years I have been using cole herse 24059 continuous duty solinoids to do pretty much the same thing. I wire my main battery direct to the alternator. Battery main Positive to house battery positive through solenoid excited by accessory terminal of ignition switch so not excited during cranking, through a three position switch where one would be off, on and a momentary bypass position so you can boost a dead main battery. Simple and cheap, not as cool but never failed us.

 

[gunnerlove]

For the above reasons I kept my 4 way switch when installing my ACR. I start on #1 one day and #2 the next, thus I know pretty quick if a battery had gone bad. Also if a battery drops a cell I can isolate that battery.