Questions about install of 2nd battery bank

[Texas Ray 72]

Hoping some of you experts can assist me or point out any mistakes I might possibly make. My 220 Sundeck currently has a single 29DC battery and I'm planning to add a second one this weekend. Only having one battery makes me nervous. I already have a dual 29 tray mounted in the stock location. I purchased a new dual Perko as well as a Yandina 100 combiner. I've looked at the combiner instructions and they seem somewhat straight forward. The question is I noticed 3 additional cables attached to the positive terminal of my current battery. Since all 3 bypass the Perko I assume they are systems that need power constantly. 2 are what I would guess to be maybe 8ga wires and 1 that looks like maybe 16 or 18ga. Am I correct to assume they are the trim system, bilge system and stereo memory wire? When I connect everything up should these be attached to the house or crank battery? Or does it matter?

Also too, battery chargers/tenders...my boat currently has a small BPS XPS, most likely a 5amp. What would you recommend for a dual set-up? A 5/5? 10/10? or something larger? I use the boat 1 day a week, currently has the stock stereo. I don't necessarily need a charger that can fully charge everything in 4 hours flat. My boat is parked in storage all week. I just want something to bring them to full charge and then maintain that charge. I want a charger I can trust to "float" and not fry $300 worth of batteries.

So that's all, sorry for so many questions but I'm very new to all this and I know many of you have extensive experience doing this. I'm here to listen and learn. Love my boat, don't want to hurt it. Thanks for any advice you can give.

-Jerry

 

[Joel_CA]

Based on the description and the instructions of your combiner- it appears you're battery combiner seems to work much like the battery "separator" that I recently installed in my boat. With this in mind, I can only share what I've experienced with my device assuming yours will work/react the same way.
In my situation, I left everything that was hooked up to the positive of my single battery (before the dual battery install) just as is, and everything else (amplifier, radio, etc) hooked up the positive of the auxiliary battery that i added. After making a few runs through the lake, I tend to anchor down and let my kids swim all day with the music playing moderately loud. After a few hours of this, I expect my aux battery to be run down. By having my sound system hooked up to the aux battery, I pretty much save my cranking battery for cranking the engine.
I currently have a single 30A charger hooked up to the aux battery. When I plug into the charger, my charger first starts out at roughly 13.5 volts, then shifts up to 14.7 volts until charging is complete. This is enough to trigger the separator to combine both batteries so that both batteries are receiving a charge (I have 2 voltage gauges hooked up independently to each battery so i can monitor their respective state of charge). I've confirmed this when testing out the operation of my separator. Once both batteries are fully charged, my charger goes into float/maintenance mode. What i noticed is that the maintenance/float voltage of my charger is at roughly 12.8 volts. This isn't enough voltage to trigger the separator to combine both batteries, therefore only the auxiliary battery is being maintained. This might happen to you as well depending on your chargers actual float voltage, and the tolerances of your combiner (which says it combines both batteries at 13v or higher). Im not sure if this is an issue or not and the instructions to my separator doesn't address this. The instructions to your combiner does address it and says a single output charger is sufficient to charge all batteries.

http://clubsearay.com/showthread.ph...ting-my-dual-battery-battery-separator-set-up

Joel

 

[Texas Ray 72]

Joel - thanks so much for the response. That definitely cleared up some of my questions, especially the part about using a single bank charger. That just saved me about $200.

I looked at the pictures of your install, very nice. That came out really clean. I especially like the dual voltage gauges. That's a great idea I hadn't thought of, but I will now.

Do you leave your charger hooked up all the time when your boat is not in use? I hear so many conflicting opinions on that.

 

[Joel_CA]

Ideally, you want your battery or batteries maintained at FULL at all times whether in storage or in use and recharged as soon as possible after it is discharged. Never should a battery be stored discharged. Lead Sulfate that form as a result of a chemical reaction will harden on the plates unless the battery is charged soon after it is discharged. Sulfated batteries will suffer from reduced capacity and the inability to hold a charge. My charger has a recondition feature in which it attempts to desulfate the battery by sending electrical pulses through the battery. I've never tried using this feature so I can't attest to how effective it is in recovering a failed battery.
Overcharging a battery will also cause problems, so its important that you use a quality charger that will go into maintenance mode after the battery is fully charged. While in maintenance/float mode- the quality charger can be hooked up to the battery indefinitely. The more expensive higher quality chargers will determine the proper float voltage based on battery chemistry and temperature. I power up my charger on the minute I get home and leave it on until i'm ready to take her out again.

J