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Battery charging with solar/engine


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16 minutes ago, cuthound said:

My Beta 43 is 2007 vintage and came with an 80A alternator for the engine starter battery and a 175A one for the domestics. It also came with the brackets value Travelpower mains alternator,  but not the pulley or Travelpower itself. 

I suspect you got what the boat specifier ordered at the time.

Could be as mine has fitted the fantastic,best piece of kit ever to be invented travelpower also on it which we use for any major leccy job. Its our second boat with one and for us an absolute must have now.

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1 hour ago, cuthound said:

My Beta 43 is 2007 vintage and came with an 80A alternator for the engine starter battery and a 175A one for the domestics. It also came with the brackets value Travelpower mains alternator,  but not the pulley or Travelpower itself. 

I suspect you got what the boat specifier ordered at the time.

Interesting - our 2010 Beta 43 came with a 45A engine alternator ( which is of course perfectly adequate for a starter battery) along with a 175A domestic alternator and a Travelpower. Obviously there was a lot of variation in what was supplied.

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35 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Interesting - our 2010 Beta 43 came with a 45A engine alternator ( which is of course perfectly adequate for a starter battery) along with a 175A domestic alternator and a Travelpower. Obviously there was a lot of variation in what was supplied.

That's the joy (if that is an appropriate expression) of the Beta marque - there's a base engine plus all sorts of bells and whistles that can be added. I guess nobody orders the base so everything's a special. Great for the first user; a challenge for a second user as it's difficult to describe what they've got. Flexibility's the name of the game! 

30 minutes ago, jddevel said:

Your very lucky. My new Beta 38 can`t have a travel power fitted unfortunately.

IIRC the 38 is too small for the load (or could be the difficulties in mounting the kit)

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13 hours ago, hopefulboaterlndn said:

getting home at 7 only leaves me an hour to run the engine...

Note that this only holds true if there are people (boats, houses, whatever) who can hear your engine. If you are moored in the back of beyond with only foxes and moorhens for company you can run your engine for longer.

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10 hours ago, Ssscrudddy said:

I dont know the answer in watts. It was stupidly cloudy yesterday.

I have 330Ah battery bank, which is good for 12 hours of my normal usage (think TV being on most of the day or night). My fridge freezer seems to use about 5 or 6 amps & is mostly on, I guess its old & tired. My desktop PC with 2 monitors will use about 15A browsing the internet, or if I'm gaming can easily pull 25A.

My 660W of solar at maximum can put out 48A.

December 18th 1 year we had no cloud all day, & whilst I cant remember the numbers, I did work out at the time that the solar put out enough to run my fridge for 8 hours.

Those 3 days of stupidly hot sunny weather, I remember waking up at 9.45 to find my batteries on float.

Yesterday was abysmal, stupidly cloudy. Pretty much all day the solar was only putting out 0.6A (+/- 0.1), the highest it got to was 2.6A briefly. So I was running my engine for electric, some nob commented on how I shouldnt need to because of all the solar panels I've got, apparently he didnt seem to think sun was needed for them to work.

This morning, even though it's cloudy, you cant look at where the sun is supposed to be in the sky because it's too bright, & my solar is putting out about 10A.

Brightest part of the day about 5pm yesterday, FOTRN mooring Doddington, River Nene (lit the fire as well in the morning cuz it was cold!)
b1WJs3B.jpg

 

Is the other boat called Isis?

Phil 

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1 hour ago, WotEver said:

Note that this only holds true if there are people (boats, houses, whatever) who can hear your engine. If you are moored in the back of beyond with only foxes and moorhens for company you can run your engine for longer.

Thanks! We're in London so most of the time will be near people, sure am right now. The plus is that I've moved the boat a few spaces down. No more tree!! 

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1 minute ago, hopefulboaterlndn said:

Thanks! We're in London so most of the time will be near people, sure am right now. The plus is that I've moved the boat a few spaces down. No more tree!! 

Chickened out on the Chainsaw option then. Think of all that firewood you missed out on :)

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Hi, I have 3 x 200 Ah AGMs, a bit old now, in their 9th year but holding up. On our Summer cruises I almost never have to run the engine and we are a very heavy 240V boat , mains fridge, tv, laptops etc. We have 4 x 100 W solar panels and they do a good job.

if we stop for a week, I may have to run the engine if it rains. I would recommend getting better batteries, yes, you only get what you pay for but with piece of mind for 10 years? I never run mine down below 60%, so they are well looked after.

I fitted a Smartguage, a good bit of kit as it learns with time, even if the batts age. Just press a button and you get the % charge left. I used to teach Physics but batteries are still a black art! Th Smartgauge website has far too much nerdy info on batts if you really are interested.

Steve

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As an aside, my son has been living on my boat in a marina for the last year.  He didn't run the engine at all since he wasn't moving and I thought it was one less thing for him to worry about as we have solar panels and when he needed 240v he put the shorepower on which also charged the lbatteries.  However by December the starter battery was as flat as a flat thing.  Clearly solar power doesn't charge the starter battery on my boat and neither does the shorepower.  Is this normal?  I have now put a new starter battery on and since April run the engine once a month.  I will be taking the boat back shortly and as I will be moving the boat regularly again the starter battery will get charged as normal.  However should I consider getting a small solar panel just to trickle charge the starter battery when the boat is all alone over winter or is there some way to include it in with the leisure batteries and be covered by the current solar panels?  Previously the starter battery always started the engine first turn of the key after laying up for three months over winter.  It was 8 years old and never missed a beat, the smartgauge showed it as being fine when I left the boat in the Marina for him to move onto in August 2016

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3 minutes ago, Barroca Grande 2 said:

As an aside, my son has been living on my boat in a marina for the last year.  He didn't run the engine at all since he wasn't moving and I thought it was one less thing for him to worry about as we have solar panels and when he needed 240v he put the shorepower on which also charged the lbatteries.  However by December the starter battery was as flat as a flat thing.  Clearly solar power doesn't charge the starter battery on my boat and neither does the shorepower.  Is this normal?  I have now put a new starter battery on and since April run the engine once a month.  I will be taking the boat back shortly and as I will be moving the boat regularly again the starter battery will get charged as normal.  However should I consider getting a small solar panel just to trickle charge the starter battery when the boat is all alone over winter or is there some way to include it in with the leisure batteries and be covered by the current solar panels?  Previously the starter battery always started the engine first turn of the key after laying up for three months over winter.  It was 8 years old and never missed a beat, the smartgauge showed it as being fine when I left the boat in the Marina for him to move onto in August 2016

It’s normal and it’s not normal.   Replace the split charge relay with a voltage sensitive relay and when one bank is being charged it will charge the other bank.

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19 minutes ago, Barroca Grande 2 said:

Clearly solar power doesn't charge the starter battery on my boat and neither does the shorepower.  Is this normal?

It depends how its connected. Some mains chargers allow charging of a starter battery in addition to the domestic. 

My main solar charges the domestic batteries whilst a small (20w) panel maintains the starter battery.

If your smartgauge is connected to both batteries you should be able to determine if the starter battery is being charged 

Edited by rusty69
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40 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

It depends how its connected. Some mains chargers allow charging of a starter battery in addition to the domestic. 

My main solar charges the domestic batteries whilst a small (20w) panel maintains the starter battery.

If your smartgauge is connected to both batteries you should be able to determine if the starter battery is being charged 

Thanks for that.  I might consider the small panel.  At 20w does it need a controller?  I do have my original solar controller still in situ on the boat from when I had stick on panels.  I could possibly use that for the starter battery.  (The new solar panels have an mppt one) 

 

My smartgauge is telling me categorically that the current solar set up is not charging the starter battery.

 

Bizarrely when I was there installing the replacement starter battery in April it was also telling me that the engine was not charging the leisure (I covered the solar panels over) not sure what that was about but hopefully once I am on the boat myself and moving that that will resolve itself.  I never had the boat on shorepower before and it may be an anomaly with that.  Any hoo recommendations for a marine electrical / Beta engineer between Uxbridge and Northampton just in case it doesn't revert to normal.  I will stop hijacking this thread now.  Thanks

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5 hours ago, Barroca Grande 2 said:

Thanks for that.  I might consider the small panel.  At 20w does it need a controller?  I do have my original solar controller still in situ on the boat from when I had stick on panels.  I could possibly use that for the starter battery.  (The new solar panels have an mppt one) 

 

My smartgauge is telling me categorically that the current solar set up is not charging the starter battery.

 

Bizarrely when I was there installing the replacement starter battery in April it was also telling me that the engine was not charging the leisure (I covered the solar panels over) not sure what that was about but hopefully once I am on the boat myself and moving that that will resolve itself.  I never had the boat on shorepower before and it may be an anomaly with that.  Any hoo recommendations for a marine electrical / Beta engineer between Uxbridge and Northampton just in case it doesn't revert to normal.  I will stop hijacking this thread now.  Thanks

Ok. Just checked, its actually 10W (us blokes like to exaggerate). The instructions suggest no regulator is required IF your battery bank(s) is greater than 140Ah.So if you do go this route I would use a controller.(or a smaller panel) 

Try increasing the revs, also check belt tension and loose connections before calling someone out. 

Edited by rusty69
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1 hour ago, Barroca Grande 2 said:

Clearly solar power doesn't charge the starter battery on my boat and neither does the shorepower.  Is this normal?

Is your shoreline powered battery charger a 'proper' boat charger, or just one from Halfords (other suppliers are available)

Does the charger have twin outputs  (one for the domestics and one for the starter), are they both connected ?

To avoid it happening again you can link-across using a jump-lead - but this does mean that your domestic usage will come from the domestic AND the starter battery, BUT when you charge the domestics, the starter battery will be charged as well - how confident are you in actually 'managing' your battery charge and discharges ? 

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8 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Is your shoreline powered battery charger a 'proper' boat charger, or just one from Halfords (other suppliers are available)

Does the charger have twin outputs  (one for the domestics and one for the starter), are they both connected ?

To avoid it happening again you can link-across using a jump-lead - but this does mean that your domestic usage will come from the domestic AND the starter battery, BUT when you charge the domestics, the starter battery will be charged as well - how confident are you in actually 'managing' your battery charge and discharges ? 

It is a Victron 3kw so should be all tickety boo.  However I query the 240 fuse box thingy as it doesn't seem to care whether the dial is pointing to shoreline front, shoreline back, gen, (I can't remember the names but it has three 'sources' I don't have a generator but that is one of the 'choices') as soon as I switch the victron on it lights up as polarity ok .  When I am on the boat I am not attached to shore power so I switch this to off and shut the door on it and forget it even exists.  But I put it to shoreline front for my son and for living purposes he has been fine.  I have tried to find a loose connection regarding the new anomaly re the engine not charging the leisure as the panel lights indicated that this might be a problem.  I took some videos which demonstrate the engine charging anomaly but they are too big to include here.

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23 minutes ago, Barroca Grande 2 said:

It is a Victron 3kw so should be all tickety boo

Being a Victron, it will more than likely have the capability to charge your engine as well as domestic bank if connected correctly.

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26 minutes ago, Barroca Grande 2 said:

It is a Victron 3kw so should be all tickety boo

Victron 3Kw is an inverter - Not a battery charger- that could be the problem.

However, if it is a 'combi' (ie 12/3000/100) then if it is wired in correctly then it will charge the starter battery.

My Victron has two (2) outputs to charge the domestic battery banks, and a 5amp starter battery specific output.

 

How is yours wired ?

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Well I couldn't upload my videos but here are a couple of photos.  One of the Victron (ignore the straps these were taking the weight of the new battery as I installed it using my feet to push it onto the swim).  Two is the engine panel showing that the domestic light didn't come on and it should.  three the engine running showing the domestic light does actually have a slight glow.  (I think that is right obviously I took these in April and I have slept since then) shame I can't upload the videos.  It would explain such a lot.

DSC_0250.JPG

DSC_0259.JPG

DSC_0260.JPG

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