Rick, Thanks. You and Josh have been incredibly helpful on this -- I tried to save a few bucks and now I'm probably doing more harm than good.
All the best, Edd ------------------------------- Edd M. Schillay Starship Enterprise NCC-1701-B C&C 37+ | City Island, NY www.StarshipSailing.com ------------------------------- 914.332.4400 | Office 914.774.9767 | Mobile ------------------------------- Sent via iPhone 7 iPhone. iTypos. iApologize On Nov 11, 2016, at 11:50 PM, Rick Brass via CnC-List <cnc-list@cnc-list.com> wrote: Edd; From earlier posts I have the impression that you have a 12v flooded house bank of around 500 AH, plus a single gel cell 12v battery of 100 or less, I seem to recall from an old discussion that you were planning to install a bank of 6v golf cart batteries for the house bank – though my recollection may be wrong. You have a Blue Sea SI or Battery Link ACR connecting the house and start batteries. For starters, the Pro Mariner 43006 charger is a single bank charger delivering a maximum of 6 amps. Per the Pro Mariner catalog is designed for a SINGLE BCI 24 through 31 series 12v battery. Which means a battery with between 50 and 100-120AH. And if you do have a house bank of golf cart batteries, Pro Mariner specifically says the 6 amp charger is not suitable and recommends another charger model for GC, 4D and 8D batteries. The rule of thumb explained to me by a tech at Pro Mariner (I have a ProNautic 50A charger on my 38 based on their recommendation for my 460AH house and 115AH start banks – all flooded batteries) is to have charger amperage at least 10% of the bank AH rating. So you need a larger charger, probably in the 50A range. Among other things, if your house bank is 500AH and is depleted to 50% (somewhere around 11.5v) the 6a charger would take a minimum of 42 hours to recharge the house bank. The charge profile shown for the charger shows that after system checks (probably initial voltage, continuity, and resistance) it starts at battery voltage and goes to 14.6v for absorption charging. It almost certainly ramps up the charge voltage in response to what it calculates as the internal resistance of the battery (remember it is designed for only 1 battery of relatively limited size). During absorption charging the voltage is constant and current falls as the internal resistance of the battery increases. When the current flow reaches a certain point, the charger reverts to a 13.4v float charge and periodically bumps up to 14.6 to measure state of charge, and then drips back to 13.4 to trickle charge the battery. Now your large house bank will absorb a lot of current before the internal resistance rises appreciably; which the charger is possibly interpreting as a low state of charge. So it ramps up the voltage to increase charge current. There is an overvoltage cutout at 16.0V, so it would not go over that level. And I wouldn’t think it would go over 14.6 unless there is a glitch in the control software. But I would suggest calling the techs at Pro Mariner to see what they have to say. Another potential cause – though it seems sort of a long shot - might be your mix of flooded house and gel start batteries. They have different charge profiles, and the gel battery absorption charge and float charge are done at different voltages than the flooded batteries (14.1 and 13.8 respectively). Is it possible that after the ACR closes the charger sense less internal resistance, interprets this as lower state of charge, and ramps up the voltage to produce higher charge current? Which since it is limited to only 6A does not change, and the charger continues to ramp up the voltage until it gets to the 16v overcharge voltage limit? Again a question for the techs at Pro Mariner. I suspect your short term solution will end up being to shut off the ACR when charging the house bank (after all, your start battery should never get below about 90-95% charge – call it 12.5v). Longer term you might think about an appropriately sized two bank charger. Or you might want to replace your ACR with an Echo Charger (which would only close when the house bank was charging and the start bank was significantly discharged). Rick Brass Imzadi C&C 38 mk 2 la Belle Aurore C&C 25 mk1 Washington, NC From: CnC-List [mailto:cnc-list-boun...@cnc-list.com] On Behalf Of Edd Schillay via CnC-List Sent: Friday, November 11, 2016 5:20 PM To: cnc-list@cnc-list.com Cc: Edd Schillay <e...@schillay.com> Subject: Re: Stus-List Battery Charger / ACR -- Some Details It’s one of these: http://www.promariner.com/en/43006
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