What type of battery?

[Bruce]

Anyone ever considered using a jet ski battery as the starter battery? I have every accessory in the boat hooked up to a deep cycle, only starters hooked up to starter. Its just two jet ski motors right? I do have a combine switch capability for emergency uses. Thoughts?

I have considered using a jet ski battery or an even smaller UPS AGM battery as an emergency starter battery. It does not take much to start our engines.

Do you have an ACR? If you have an ACR it would charge the small starting battery first then start charging the house battery. I think this is a good idea. It result in faster charges for your house battery.

I went with two group 31 batteries with a battery switch, a low voltage disconnect and an onboard shore power charger. I did not install an ACR because do not expect to run the engines enough to recharge the batteries on most outings. The LVD prevents draining the batteries far enough to prevent starting so I use both as house batteries.

 

[David Analog]

No, the manual for the VSR and DVSR specifically talk about this scenario. The DVSR has a circuit to prevent chatter / popping in and out from this by waiting a little bit for the voltage to come back up but a big depleted battery will not work with a small charged battery.

The ACRs may be different but my understanding is they have the same time delay circuitry.

I think you misunderstand that function as it relates to the question. The timed circuit is just to eliminate the annoying chatter of frequent attempts. It's a nasty cycle when the ACR/VSR closes, the voltage sags, the relay opens, and the voltage instantly elevates again, and so on and so on creating the cycle. In either case (with or without the delay) the voltage sensing relay will not lock into the combined position until the voltage can stiffen. There are endless variations from system to system. The battery size is just one small factor.
Very few that use an ACR/VSR successfully will have an equal capacity among both banks whether this is due to size of potential capacity or state of charge. There are countless examples of two 29s on one bank and a single 24 on the other bank (190 to 65 A/H ratio).
The specific charging system and other simultaneous loads serve to influence the ACR/VSR behavior.

 

[davel501]

I think you misunderstand that function as it relates to the question. The timed circuit is just to eliminate the annoying chatter of frequent attempts. It's a nasty cycle when the ACR/VSR closes, the voltage sags, the relay opens, and the voltage instantly elevates again, and so on and so on creating the cycle. In either case (with or without the delay) the voltage sensing relay will not lock into the combined position until the voltage can stiffen. There are endless variations from system to system. The battery size is just one small factor.
Very few that use an ACR/VSR successfully will have an equal capacity among both banks whether this is due to size of potential capacity or state of charge. There are countless examples of two 29s on one bank and a single 24 on the other bank (190 to 65 A/H ratio).
The specific charging system and other simultaneous loads serve to influence the ACR/VSR behavior.

You may be right but the BEP manual specifically said the batteries needed to be matched. It also had limits on the secondary battery size based on the power output from the alternators/stators. I get a 404 when trying to pull up the product detail page for the stock cluster so that does not help me much right now.

My Group 31 AGMs are right at the limit with my twin engines but normal group 31s would be too big for this charging system. Here is the chart from another switch:


http://www.marinco.com/en/716-h-140a-dvsr
http://www.marinco.com/~/media/inRiver/327548-18218.pdf

 

[David Analog]

The smaller Yamaha charging systems do impact the ACR/VSR behavior more than with a larger alternator and this increases your dependency on AC shore charging. But on the flipside, I like the protection provided to the smaller stators by an ACR/VSR.
Keep in mind that a deeper discharge on a smaller battery could represent just as much amperage drain as a lesser discharge on a larger battery. So part of this is monitoring your battery voltage after a long duration at rest and not allowing the stereo bank to be depleted below 12.0 volts.
You always have the option of shutting down the audio system long enough for the ACR/VSR to get into a more comfortable load and stay combined.

 

[cwoav8r]

Now that you mention it, when I noticed that the ACR was not switching, I checked the voltage (via the GPS) and the voltage was around 12. when I switched to both the voltage increased to around 12.4. The voltage is measured off the house battery, so it may be the Blue Top that is failing.... hmmm... boating this weekend after some maintenance, we shall see how it goes.

The only place I measure voltage normally (without a volt meter) is via the GPS, a Garmin 440s. It has always displayed what I considered to be proper voltage, after the start and house battery were fully charged, around 14.2.

Today I turned the battery on and checked the voltage on the GPS and it read 11.9. I checked voltage at the start battery, house battery, ACR to ground bar, cigarette lighter receptacle... everywhere... and get 14.1. I did not think to pull the connector to the GPS and check it there, but what the heck. I have been having some problems with the depth indication freezing/flashing, just wondering if it is yet another internal failure in the GPS.

Thoughts?

 

[steined]

The only place I measure voltage normally (without a volt meter) is via the GPS, a Garmin 440s. It has always displayed what I considered to be proper voltage, after the start and house battery were fully charged, around 14.2.

Today I turned the battery on and checked the voltage on the GPS and it read 11.9. I checked voltage at the start battery, house battery, ACR to ground bar, cigarette lighter receptacle... everywhere... and get 14.1. I did not think to pull the connector to the GPS and check it there, but what the heck. I have been having some problems with the depth indication freezing/flashing, just wondering if it is yet another internal failure in the GPS.

Thoughts?

My initial guess would be some corrosion in the connector for the GPS unit. If it is small gauge wire back to the battery or fuse block (at battery), then small amounts of corrosion could cause some increased resistance. In line fuse corrosion could also be a possibility.

 

[cwoav8r]

Thanks @steined ... I'll start there and see what happens.