Battery Wiring Advise

I'm thinking maybe you used the address of the thumbnail (from your album) vs. the expanded photo and that's why it's small. Here is the larger one for convenience:

Wiring_Diagram_001.jpg
 
So I see 2 things that I would change. The wire for the bilge pump should go straight from the battery to the pump no need to run it up to the switch. The switch is to manually activate the pump and bypass the float. The pump should run in a rain or sea condition if the switch is off. The second would be to spend a few extra dollars and buy a dual bank charger and let each battery be charge at there own rate. While you can charge through the charge relay you have the potential of over charging the start battery more than you need to. You will have this when the motor is charging I would just keep it to a minimum. Some AGM Battery manufactures recommend a percentage of the batteries capacitive for charging typically 20 to 30 amps for bulk charging. the single bank chargers tend to be less than 10 amps for the lower priced chargers. It's all kind of a give and take to try to get the best life out of your batteries.
 
jkidd":kbmr590k said:
The wire for the bilge pump should go straight from the battery to the pump no need to run it up to the switch.
Click to expand...

Thanks jkidd, my setup actually does have that - the bilge pump is wired directly to the battery and to the switch. My diagram does not illustrate that very clearly, but thanks for pointing that out. I agree with your assessment of the dual bank charger. Thanks again for your comments.

Grazer
 
Years ago on my Campion hardtop I devised a rather unorthodox method to charge my house and start batteries separately. The start batteries were kept topped up directly from the alternator. The house battery I charged with the 15amp 3bank onboard charger. This was powered by the invertor/alternator while underway. When connected to shore power it was a simple matter of changing the 2 battery switches and reprogramming the onboard charger to include the start batteries.

There is a power loss every time you change DC to AC and then back to DC - but it seamed to work Ok. Was a bit of fun to wire up but at the time using the equipment that was on the boat and not spending a bunch more money it did the job of isolating the charging of the 2 banks.

Regards, Rob
 
jkidd said:
This is what I used in Voyager and it works very well.

Batswitch.jpg

Hello Voyagerjk,

After looking into the various switches, I decided to go with the same model as the one in your boat. I did go with the horizonal cluster however. One question I have is I have noticed both batteries maintaining identical voltage (measured to 2 decimal places on a volt meter). Is this correct? Wired in parallel as per the manufacturers direction, so it makes sense they should be the same, however, one being a start and the other a house battery has me asking the question.

Grazer
Click to expand...
 
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