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 Electrical Refit Part I: Batteries and Charger		  New Topic  Topic Locked
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bjoye
Navigator

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USA
105 Posts
Initially Posted - 04/17/2017 :  10:57:17  Show Profile
2 group 24 WM 75 AH deep cycle batteries are mounted in the battery box under the aft berth. All battery cables are 6 AWG using Ancor battery lugs.


For the battery charger, I used a Blue Sea 7605 BatteryLink with integrated ACR. It is 10 amp and has a remote unit, temperature sensor, and plugs into a AC outlet.

Each battery has a positive bus (BlueSea 2019 PowerBar Dual BusBar), a Dual MRBF Terminal Fuse Block (BlueSea 2151), each with a 40 amp and and 80 amp MRBF. The 40 amp lines go to the battery charger, the 80 amp lines to the battery switch. From the switch, 6 AWG line goes to the electric start Nissan 9.8 motor and 10 AWG to the DC panel thru a 40 amp Maxi fuse (BlueSea 5006).

The negative bus is a BlueSea Common BusBar 2302.



Lessons Learned:

MRBF fuse Block: Neat idea, but the mounting brackets require a lot of space above the battery terminal, which I did not have. Mounting them to a BlueSea Duel Power Bus on the battery panel solved the problem. I am in violation of the ABYC 7” battery fuse recommendation, but not by much.

Battery Charger: Not particularly happy with it. For a simple 2 battery setup, it is adequate. It is a true smart charger, 3 phase (bulk, absorption, float), no battery type profiles. The remote unit is not a full battery monitor, but it will tell you basic info as to the state of the charger (On, Off, Combined). The ACR unit is functional, but not bipolar (everything goes thru the start terminal, so all sources must be connected as such). It will combine the batteries when the voltage is above 13.5V (aka, someone is applying a charge: the charger, solar, motor). It will separate the batteries below 12.7 v (aka, there is a load like staring the motor). It will also separate the batteries if one battery is too low or too high. My problem with the ACR makes a really annoying high pitch noise which the batteries are combined. I called Blue Seas and they confirmed this is normal. Seems the ACR oscillates at 2 khz. Given that a battery charger capasity should be around 10% (after line losses), 10 amp is barely enough.

Ancor Tools: I felt the crimper (Ancor 703050) over crimps the 6 AWG lugs. I tried using the 4 AWG setting, but it was not enough. Better than cheap crimpers, but not as good as FTZ 942284 (recommended by Maine Sail). At least the Ancor lugs are readily available on Amazon and any WM. The cable cutter (Ancor 703005) worked very well. The battery cable stripper (Ancor 702065) is worthless. Maine Sail recommend a pair of pruning shears from Amazon and they work great.



Cable Labels: I used the method suggested by Maine Sail, a Brother label machine, heat shrink, and wire labels. It worked out very well. The heat shrink is needed to hold the Brother labels to the cable. I used the labels on all battery cables (6 AWG and 10 AWG), and the duplex and triplex wires. I used the wire number labels on individual wires.
"Frayed Knot" 1989 C-25 WK/SR #5878

pastmember
Master Marine Consultant

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2402 Posts
Response Posted - 04/19/2017 :  09:35:56  Show Profile
nioce
Frank Hopper
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Notice: The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.