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Battery Conundrum


mkn777er

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I know this has been asked many times before and I apologise for doing it again. Now, I consider myself a reasonably technically minded type that is prepared to have a go at most things. But for some reason when it comes to batteriies, charging, dis-charging and all that stuff, my mind goes to mush but I need a fix and would like to check my understanding. My (leisure, not live aboard) boat set up is as follows:

 

  • One Starter Battery
  • Three 110 Ah Leisure Batteries
  • Two 100w Solar Panels for battery charging
  • Access to Shore-line
  • Hurricane Diesel Heating with 'frost' protection mode

 

In normal summer months the solar panels work very well in keeping the battery bank fully charged. However, understandably that is not the case during the dull dreary winter months when they non-effective. And here's the problem. The Hurricane heating needs a good, strong 12v to get going and during the past couple of winters without a regular 'top-up' from the solar panels I have gone to the boat to find depleted batteries and error messages on the Hurricane. So I need to use the shore-line with a battery charger. I have been looking at the Victron Blue Smart IP22. The slaes department tell me it will be suitable for my needs but before I take the plunge could anybody answer these:

 

  • It has three outputs. Is that one output for the starter battery, and one output for the leisure bank, and one spare? Or is it one output for each leisure battery? (I told you my mind goes to mush!)
  • How is it connected to the batteries? Simple croc-clips, or does it have to be permanent? (would prefer temporary because in the summer not needed and can always use it at home for other batteries if required).
  • When the sun does shine on those rare beautiful crsip cold days, will there be a 'conflict of interest' with the solar panel charging?

 

Many thanks for reading this, and appreciate any thoughts.

 

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12 minutes ago, mkn777er said:
  • It has three outputs. Is that one output for the starter battery, and one output for the leisure bank, and one spare? Or is it one output for each leisure battery? (I told you my mind goes to mush!

One for the starter, one for both leisure, one spare.

12 minutes ago, mkn777er said:

How is it connected to the batteries? Simple croc-clips, or does it have to be permanent? (would prefer temporary because in the summer not needed and can always use it at home for other batteries if required).

It needs to be permanent. Croc clips will fail a BSS exam. There will need to be suitably sized fuses between the batteries and the charger in the positive wires. A suitably rated plug and socket can let you remove the charger in summer.

 

12 minutes ago, mkn777er said:

When the sun does shine on those rare beautiful crsip cold days, will there be a 'conflict of interest' with the solar panel charging?

 

No conflict. One will supply the charge in preference to the other. Which one that is depends.

Jen

Edited by Jen-in-Wellies
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11 minutes ago, mkn777er said:

I know this has been asked many times before and I apologise for doing it again. Now, I consider myself a reasonably technically minded type that is prepared to have a go at most things. But for some reason when it comes to batteriies, charging, dis-charging and all that stuff, my mind goes to mush but I need a fix and would like to check my understanding. My (leisure, not live aboard) boat set up is as follows:

 

  • One Starter Battery
  • Three 110 Ah Leisure Batteries
  • Two 100w Solar Panels for battery charging
  • Access to Shore-line
  • Hurricane Diesel Heating with 'frost' protection mode

 

In normal summer months the solar panels work very well in keeping the battery bank fully charged. However, understandably that is not the case during the dull dreary winter months when they non-effective. And here's the problem. The Hurricane heating needs a good, strong 12v to get going and during the past couple of winters without a regular 'top-up' from the solar panels I have gone to the boat to find depleted batteries and error messages on the Hurricane. So I need to use the shore-line with a battery charger. I have been looking at the Victron Blue Smart IP22. The slaes department tell me it will be suitable for my needs but before I take the plunge could anybody answer these:

 

  • It has three outputs. Is that one output for the starter battery, and one output for the leisure bank, and one spare? Or is it one output for each leisure battery? (I told you my mind goes to mush!)
  • How is it connected to the batteries? Simple croc-clips, or does it have to be permanent? (would prefer temporary because in the summer not needed and can always use it at home for other batteries if required).
  • When the sun does shine on those rare beautiful crsip cold days, will there be a 'conflict of interest' with the solar panel charging?

 

Many thanks for reading this, and appreciate any thoughts.

 

You would need to check the manual but usually multi output chargers are not left with disconnected outputs.  So one could join all 3 to the leisure batteries or more normally 2 to the leisure batteries and one to the engine start battery.

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Thanks for the replies. Sounds like this could be the solution I was looking for. One final question, do I go for the best rated charger that Victron produce? In the IP 22 range it starts at 10 amp output and goes up to 30 amp charging output. I guess the 30 amp (although more expensive) would be best? Thanks again.

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23 minutes ago, mkn777er said:

Thanks for the replies. Sounds like this could be the solution I was looking for. One final question, do I go for the best rated charger that Victron produce? In the IP 22 range it starts at 10 amp output and goes up to 30 amp charging output. I guess the 30 amp (although more expensive) would be best? Thanks again.

It depends on what you want to do with it! If you are mostly on shore power then over a 24 hour period your average current drain is unlikely to get anywhere near 10A, and thus a 10A charger will keep your batteries topped up.

 

If you want to arrive at a marina and charge the batteries, or use a generator to charge the batteries when out and about, you want one that will charge as fast as possible so it would be the 30A one.

 

Compromise is always best - go for a 20A one!

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As Nick says, a 10A, (is the lowest 15A?), will be fine if you are always connected to shore power. However, if you are ever charging from a genny, or are in a hurry for some reason, even a 30A charger will be slow.

 

So I would get the 30A model, in order to be future protected to some degree. It will also be an advantage over 10A/15A when you come to sell. The difference seems to be around £75, so not the end of the world.

 

The datasheets suggest that you can get one with only one output, rather than 3 - which should save a bit of money. Given that your starter should always be full from the engine running, and you only have one bank, you dont need 3 outputs, and it is a faff to connect them together to balance things.

 

Having said that, a quick google produced only 3 output units, so there may not be a choice.

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If you're looking to save money a cheaper manufacturer than Victron might be worth considering, 

I have the Blue Smart and must admit the app is more a marketing feature than something particularly useful (it basically tells you what the lights on the box tell you in shiny graphical form), though there's a nice long warranty on it.

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I had the IP22 30A on our old boat and have a 15A one on our new one - to charge the bow thruster battery.

Very good units. Easy to use. Bluetooth makes it even easier. I'd go for the 30A one so it can charge at 30A but most of the time it will be just trickle charging the bank.

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20 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

I had the IP22 30A on our old boat and have a 15A one on our new one - to charge the bow thruster battery.

Very good units. Easy to use. Bluetooth makes it even easier. I'd go for the 30A one so it can charge at 30A but most of the time it will be just trickle charging the bank.

Wot he said ^^^^

 

I have had a 30a Victron ip22 for ages and it has performed flawlessly. They have a night mode which cuts the charging power so the fan doesn't keep you awake. With my 30a one I've never used this as the fan has never cut in - this may not be the case with a smaller one working harder.

 

The other bit of advice I'd offer, a little contrary to Dr Bob, is that they do a blue smart which has Bluetooth and a blue power which doesn't. Maybe I'm missing something, but don't think that the Bluetooth will give you any great info using the app, because it only tells you the same as the lights on the front of the charger. You may consider saving a few quid if you can find a non Bluetooth version.

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21 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Wot he said ^^^^

 

I have had a 30a Victron ip22 for ages and it has performed flawlessly. They have a night mode which cuts the charging power so the fan doesn't keep you awake. With my 30a one I've never used this as the fan has never cut in - this may not be the case with a smaller one working harder.

 

The other bit of advice I'd offer, a little contrary to Dr Bob, is that they do a blue smart which has Bluetooth and a blue power which doesn't. Maybe I'm missing something, but don't think that the Bluetooth will give you any great info using the app, because it only tells you the same as the lights on the front of the charger. You may consider saving a few quid if you can find a non Bluetooth version.

The Bluetooth just saves you getting out of your chair!  I'm a lazy sod.

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On 30/11/2020 at 12:34, Chewbacka said:

You would need to check the manual but usually multi output chargers are not left with disconnected outputs.  So one could join all 3 to the leisure batteries or more normally 2 to the leisure batteries and one to the engine start battery.

 

I said that recently on another thread but was told that was because my Sterling charger was old technology. 

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5 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

Wot he said ^^^^

 

I have had a 30a Victron ip22 for ages and it has performed flawlessly. They have a night mode which cuts the charging power so the fan doesn't keep you awake. With my 30a one I've never used this as the fan has never cut in - this may not be the case with a smaller one working harder.

 

The other bit of advice I'd offer, a little contrary to Dr Bob, is that they do a blue smart which has Bluetooth and a blue power which doesn't. Maybe I'm missing something, but don't think that the Bluetooth will give you any great info using the app, because it only tells you the same as the lights on the front of the charger. You may consider saving a few quid if you can find a non Bluetooth version.

The Bluetooth is really good because it also lets you customise the bulk, absorption and float voltages, and also gives a good readout of the actual charging volts and amps.

 

..............Dave

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I've had both the blue smart and phoenix chargers both with 3 outputs.  Good chargers, the only thing I was really miffed at was that I expected it to charge 3 batteries or banks independently... but they don't, they'll use the same charge profile for all banks connected and only modulate the amps to each battery or banks.  There were a few words after I installed the £400 phoenix charger and realised that...!

 

If i did it again i would buy 2 blue smart charges so they were truly independent, have fail over and save a load of cash!!!

 

Edit;

If you want your charger easily removable use Anderson Plugs...

Edited by Quattrodave
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36 minutes ago, dmr said:

The Bluetooth is really good because it also lets you customise the bulk, absorption and float voltages, and also gives a good readout of the actual charging volts and amps.

 

..............Dave

 

Ah, thanks Dave. I've had mine a fair old while now and had forgotten doung that or the settings were already the ones I needed. I did avail myself of that feature with the later BlueSmart Solar Controller fit though and I would certainly recommend Bluetooth for monitoring that as it's a big step over the lights on the front.

 

30 minutes ago, Quattrodave said:

I've had both the blue smart and phoenix chargers both with 3 outputs.  Good chargers, the only thing I was really miffed at was that I expected it to charge 3 batteries or banks independently... but they don't, they'll use the same charge profile for all banks connected and only modulate the amps to each battery or banks.  There were a few words after I installed the £400 phoenix charger and realised that...!

 

If i did it again i would buy 2 blue smart charges so they were truly independent, have fail over and save a load of cash!!!

 

Edit;

If you want your charger easily removable use Anderson Plugs...

I tried quite hard to find out how the 30(3) dealt with separate batteries to no avail and went for the 30(1) as a result. I'm not surprised you were somewhat caught out.

 

I use a 5a CTek to look after my starter battery, but usually the comfort indicator connector tells me that battery doesn't need any additional charging attention so the odd maintenance charge is all that's needed there.

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2 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

I did avail myself of that feature with the later BlueSmart Solar Controller fit though and I would certainly recommend Bluetooth for monitoring that as it's a big step over the lights on the front.

....and you can do it from the comfort of your chair ?

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  • 3 weeks later...

I recently installed this IP22 30/3. But after a couple of weeks I'm getting a fault saying batteries have over voltage. I was hoping the app would give advice on how to solve problem like OP my head goes to mush with battery stuff. So I've tried changing the wiring, of note when I attached to leisure batteries the app did not show two batteries charging but I checked with voltmeter and could see them charging accordingly. I know my starter battery is sound so I connected to just that one. My isolator can be switched down to connect the starter to the leisures. So after leaving it charging for 10 minutes or so I connected them all up (could this be too much load?). After a few minutes the same fault appeared. I'm stumped, are my batteries dead, is the charger faulty? I'm using a 2kw pure sine wave generator. Could running just the charger not be enough load on the Jenny? Any help or advice would be appreciated because there is nothing on the Victron site to help and nothing in there instructions.

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Ouch 18.48v is well high! I think there are 3 possibilities:

 

1) the solar controller isn’t working correctly and is making the voltage too high. If the fault never occurs in the dark, this fault can be discounted

 

2) the charger is faulty and putting out too high a voltage.

 

3) everything is actually fine, but the measuring and reporting system is faulty.

 

You can distinguish between 2) and 3) by measuring the actual battery voltage with a hand held meter across the battery terminals. - if you don’t have one, can you borrow one?

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Ok, not the solar then! I’d check the voltage with the charger off, then turn it on and check the voltage again. You will need to measure the voltage when the error is showing.

 

But I suppose regardless of whether it is 2) or 3) above, the new charger is faulty. The only difference is that if it 2) I would turn the charger off straight away. Whereas if it is 3, it is just a nuisance and the charger could be used until such time as you have a chance to replace it.

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Did you connect the panels before connecting the battery?  Most controllers are auto sensing and if the panels are connected first they set the battery as a 24volt battery not a 12, that could explain your voltages the controller is trying to get them to 26 volts.

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6 minutes ago, Detling said:

Did you connect the panels before connecting the battery?  Most controllers are auto sensing and if the panels are connected first they set the battery as a 24volt battery not a 12, that could explain your voltages the controller is trying to get them to 26 volts.

Not when it’s dark!

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