Dual battery setup in a 232

[capnkevin]

Humvee regarding the speaker upgrade on my boat we bought the new speakers on Ebay. Then sold the old ones on ebay. The end result was it cost me very little.

[merwin10]

scottsman that is a very good solution the BEP switch cluster and VSR work well - You did not say what type of battery you would be using I would recommend a combination deep cell starter battery - Move all the electronics to battery #2 and put the things with DC motors on battery #1 (trim tabs-windless-starter) - Hope this helps

Mike -

[nowakoaj]

I had the 2nd battery and switch installed by the dealer before I picked up my boat.  It is a cuddy instead of a BR, so I do not know if the engine compartment is the same.  The batteries are on the port side.

ajn

[scotsman_25]

merwin10, that was exaclty what I had in mind with just having the starter battery and the house battery for all other needs ive been down the road of having one battery and it draining on me,  its just finding ideal place to place the BEP as im sure that will be the system i go for purely on ease of install and safe use

[merwin10]

Scotsman you might want to check US ebay for the switch module and the VSR going for as little as $20 US - wasn't many so look quick! Your choice!

Mike -

[scotsman_25]

thanks merwin  or is it mike?. Just looked ebay us and could only find them at $300 any search advice is very welcome as everyone knows they arent cheap so anywhere to save suits me

[merwin10]

Sorry - I think someone on the board bought the ones I saw - what a deal obviousily someone didn't know what they had and they were brand new still in the shipping box!

Mike -  

[merwin10]

Capt'n Kev did you get my email -

Mike -  

[capnkevin]

Merwin 10 - thanks for the email - appreciate the help.

Do you have any experiance with a Heart Pathfinder  100 interface battery combiner? Looks very impressive. Allows you to charge both batteries, seperates them from discharging each other & allows you to combine if needed.

Would this meet the needed requirements?

[merwin10]

Yep! This is a fairly new product from Xantrex. Basically nothing more than a voltage sensing relay, VSR, with a pair of high ampage relays. Allows you to set the cut in voltage and the cutout voltage - which isolates the batteries when no charger is present - also acts as a parallel switch for hard engine starts - It would work in your boat providing you don't exceed the 100 amp limit - Any combiner VSR is better than a isolation diodes because you don't have the voltage drop that diodes have by design - I have some reservations on the parallel mode on the 100 amp model - due to what a starter ampage might be at a lower than full voltage charge - Check your current battery CCA capacity you might be better off with the 250 amp model - These units have a protection circuit that requires a cool down period after drawing to many amps during hard starts - The specs are not specific as to how much time to draw over the 100 amps and what the cool down time might be - the 100 amp model is about 400 peak amps and the 250 amp model is 1200 amps peak - Note do NOT confuse this with over ampage operation -

If it where my boat I would go with the 250 amp version - Only that the specifications are not clear as to over ampage operation - during parallel battery operation -

Mike -  

[Humvee13]

Just ran the wires today for my helm accessories. I couldnt find a 20amp fuse kit with anything lower than 12 gauge wire comming out of it, It wouldnt make any sense to hook my 10 gauge cable up to a 12gauge fuse kit. Maybe I can find it online, it looks like there was already 2 in there for other various accessories on the boat. I only needed to take 1 of the compartments out to run the wire down the side and it was really easy once that was out. So much room in there! I forgot the camera though, But i'll try to take some pictures tomorrow I am not finished yet making all the final connections.

On a side note I guess its good practice to drill a pilot hole when mounting things on the helm, i guess theres metal or something mixed in it because it sheered one of the bolts in half as I was drilling it it was so hard. So I drilled some pilots and the other screws when in fine. the GPS is mounted perfectly where I wanted it! I just hope I can drill a 2 inch hole in it with no problems for the GPS Wire, The Garmin cable harness is huge!