AR250 3rd & possibly 4th battery placement.

[King]

Recently acquired a couple of new lead/acid Group 24 batteries and would like to incorporate one, possibly both, of them into our 2022 AR250's house battery bank. Our two existing batteries are a higher quality product than the recently acquired ones though, the new ones are very good on their own, and both sets are in excellent condition. All four are Marine Group 24 with 1000 MCA and 800 CCA and test out slightly better than their specifications. The original are sealed, the new ones have removable caps.

Now knowing some particulars, here is what has me scratching my head...

Does the addition of the serviceable caps on the new batteries pose any issues, concerns, or require any special consideration, beyond what they would in an automotive setting?

With a stock stereo and no additional electronics currently installed, is installing both batteries, for a total of 3 house batteries, over kill?

What's charging going to look like with one or both installed?

Where should they be installed? I can see the argument for "right next to the existing two batteries" but, there's also an argument for "the other side of the engine compartment would allow for better weight distribution".

Where ever location they're going to reside in will need to accept the mounting of a factory styled batter case assembly and the screws to hold it in place.

If anyone's successfully been down this road, or knows where, or more importantly, where not to install for whatever reason, please let me know.

Thank you,

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

To begin, I have to ask why you’d want this many house batteries? Do you find that with the single house battery that the voltage is dropping too low by the end of the day?

There can be a few issues with adding in different batteries, whether by age / cycles and manufacturers. If the batteries are not balanced the ones with the higher state of charge / voltage (potential difference) will discharge into the ones with a lower state of charge etc.. This can be minimized by checking specific gravity of each of the cells with a hydrometer on the serviceable new batteries, are the old cap less batteries cells accessible? All flooded lead acid batteries used in deep cycle applications need to have an equalizing charge applied to them regularly / monthly during the boating season. And checking specific gravity of all the cells to see if the cells are balanced and if the electrolyte is where it should be is very important to FLA battery performance.

I highly recommend a Victron Smart Shunt on your house batteries so you know how much power you are using and what the state of charge is, anything less is just a guess and could therefore result in several areas of waste, money, weight, unused capacity that will never be used thereby increasing fuel consumption and decreasing performance. For sure pi,ing all those batteries on one side will cause the boat to list and make the boat want to turn the opposite direction of that weight.

 

[King]

To begin, I have to ask why you’d want this many house batteries? Do you find that with the single house battery that the voltage is dropping too low by the end of the day?

There's a few reasons, none of which are rooted in having had an issue...
1. Tool-Time-Testosterone factor; bigger must be better, right? Had plans to upgrade to two house, one start for while.
2. Nervous Nelly aspect. Never can shake the feeling of anxiety that running the stereo brings while floating around "relaxing".
3. Future-proof/prep for possible electrical upgrades down the road; stereo, amps, and so on.
4. It gives me something useful to do with these two batteries that came my way.


There can be a few issues with adding in different batteries, whether by age / cycles and manufacturers. If the batteries are not balanced the ones with the higher state of charge / voltage (potential difference) will discharge into the ones with a lower state of charge etc.. This can be minimized by checking specific gravity of each of the cells with a hydrometer on the serviceable new batteries, are the old cap less batteries cells accessible? All flooded lead acid batteries used in deep cycle applications need to have an equalizing charge applied to them regularly / monthly during the boating season. And checking specific gravity of all the cells to see if the cells are balanced and if the electrolyte is where it should be is very important to FLA battery performance.

The cells on the older batteries are not accessible that I can tell. Reading up now on what all is involved with equalizing charging. Not sure my current chargers are capable of that.

I highly recommend a Victron Smart Shunt on your house batteries so you know how much power you are using and what the state of charge is, anything less is just a guess and could therefore result in several areas of waste, money, weight, unused capacity that will never be used thereby increasing fuel consumption and decreasing performance. For sure pi,ing all those batteries on one side will cause the boat to list and make the boat want to turn the opposite direction of that weight.

Looked in to the Victron Smart Shunt and that looks appealing! The amp rating that I'm seeing on those, is that cranking amps or amp hours? Came across a 500A, 1000A, and 2000A model.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

The smart shunt is for your house battery set up. It does have an extra tap to measure starter battery voltage.

Unless I missed it somewhere I do not see what kind of battery chargers you have currently, but most modern smart chargers have a manual equalizing charge that can be activated once the batteries have finished charging normally. I cannot over state how important this is on flooded lead acid batteries to keep their performance at optimum. Equalizing mixes stratified electrolyte, thoroughly cleans the plates, brings the electrolyte up to the best specific gravity, and balances the cells. It is my belief that people who do not do equalizing charges on their batteries think that over time-too early-that their batteries need replacing and all that is needed to perform regular equalizing charges to keep their batteries going for their full 500 cycles of life.

Bigger is not always better, especially as I stated that if you are not using up your current house battery on a regular basis, again, the smart shunt will tell the tale. I’d recommend installing that first on your current house battery to see what’s what. Speaking of which, your currently house battery, is a dedicated deep cycle battery or one of those dual purpose batteries? The actual battery manufacturer and mode would be very helpful.

Nervous Nelly factor; Do you have the OEM installed BEP marine battery switch with DVSR? If you have that then there should be no nervous nelly factor. I do carry an anti gravity jump pack just in case, but more likely I’ll end up using that to help someone else get their engine started.

Future; okay, I get that, but for the time being just install the smart shunt and see where you are at, and, in the future, you can use the smart shunt after all the goodies are installed to give you an idea of how much storage you really need plus a healthy buffer.

Something useful to do with these free batteries; If you do not need these batteries then putting them in your boat will only add a lot of weight and not serve a useful purpose, in other words a net negative to your boating experience. Charge them up and leave them in a cool dark place with a tender on them for future use.

 

[King]

The smart shunt is for your house battery set up. It does have an extra tap to measure starter battery voltage.

With as helpful as the information produced by the Victron SmartShunt can be, I'm onboard with installing one of those for sure. Looks like there are two versions (IP21 & IP65) with three different capacities (500A, 1000A, & 2000A) LINK. Leaning towards the IP65 variant for sure. What are your thoughts on the amp rating? If I'm reading things correctly, the 500A would be more than enough capacity for one battery, and most likely two under the right conditions.

Unless I missed it somewhere I do not see what kind of battery chargers you have currently, but most modern smart chargers have a manual equalizing charge that can be activated once the batteries have finished charging normally. I cannot over state how important this is on flooded lead acid batteries to keep their performance at optimum. Equalizing mixes stratified electrolyte, thoroughly cleans the plates, brings the electrolyte up to the best specific gravity, and balances the cells. It is my belief that people who do not do equalizing charges on their batteries think that over time-too early-that their batteries need replacing and all that is needed to perform regular equalizing charges to keep their batteries going for their full 500 cycles of life.

Charging things up with two NOCO Genius 5A chargers, one for each battery LINK. Upon researching what you've mentioned in reference to these chargers, I can see that they do have an equalizing charge feature that NOCO refers to as Repair Mode that's described in their manual as "An advanced battery recovery mode for repairing and restoring, old, idle, damaged, stratified or sulfated batteries." With Current Conditioning up to 16.5V. One thing that's shown up in this is that's of concern is that the chargers state that they will charge various types of batteries at slightly different voltages Up To 120Ah. I get the different voltages but, the 120Ah is concerning as the newer EverStart batteries are 135Ah, and I can't find any information on the Ah rating on the Deka Marine Master batteries. If these need to be changed out to the NOCO 10A, they can be as we still have receipts and they were purchased recently.

Bigger is not always better, especially as I stated that if you are not using up your current house battery on a regular basis, again, the smart shunt will tell the tale. I’d recommend installing that first on your current house battery to see what’s what. Speaking of which, your currently house battery, is a dedicated deep cycle battery or one of those dual purpose batteries? The actual battery manufacturer and mode would be very helpful.

Will do on the SmartShunt for sure. Most likely will have it in by this weekend. As for the batteries... the two that came with the boat, the existing batteries are Deka Marine Master 24M7 Marine Starting Batteries 1000MCA/800CCA unknown Ah LINK. The new arrivals are EverStart 24MS2 Marine 100MCA/800CCA 135Ah.

Nervous Nelly factor; Do you have the OEM installed BEP marine battery switch with DVSR? If you have that then there should be no nervous nelly factor. I do carry an anti gravity jump pack just in case, but more likely I’ll end up using that to help someone else get their engine started.

It is the OEM BEP marine battery switch with DVSR. Not sure of the exact model number but, it's form factor looks exactly like this one LINK. Like you, I wanted a bit of insurance when it came to starting and purchased at NOCO Boost Plus Jump Starter with 1000A capacity LINK shortly after bringing the boat home from the dealer. We keep it charge up at the house and it resides in our "going to the lake" bag.

Future; okay, I get that, but for the time being just install the smart shunt and see where you are at, and, in the future, you can use the smart shunt after all the goodies are installed to give you an idea of how much storage you really need plus a healthy buffer.

Something useful to do with these free batteries; If you do not need these batteries then putting them in your boat will only add a lot of weight and not serve a useful purpose, in other words a net negative to your boating experience. Charge them up and leave them in a cool dark place with a tender on them for future use.

If it turns out that the 5A chargers currently being used are inadequate as main chargers that can reliably execute repair/conditioning charges, would they be useable as trickle/tender chargers in this application?

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

As far as FLA battery concerned, they need 10-13% of the Ah rating in amps to charge properly, so a 100 Ah battery needs 10-13A for charging. This is mainly that whole electrolyte mixing thing. The repair mode sounds about right. You might check out Trojan Batteries web site for more on how to maintain FLA batteries.

Yes the 5A chargers would make excellent devices for keeping batteries in storage.

Yes the IP65 smart shunt in the 500 A model is more than sufficient for our purposes. I think you will be happy with this device as you will not only be able to see the draw of various devices, the state of charge of your battery, the charms from your boats engines etc…

Unless I am mistaken your batteries all look like start / deep cycle batteries. These are good batteries as I have several of these that used to be in my boat, never had an issue with them.

I’ve never had an issue with the dvsr as delivered from the factory. Now it’s fully manual as I’m running a lfp house battery.

I’ll be interested to hear what you find with the smart shunt.