Batteries & Switches

[fish-n-fun]

Recently purchased an '89 Gulfstream 232 and have been refurbishing it. Only time in the water so far was sea trial. I have dual Yamaha 150s and two Perko switches. So far it seems as though there is a switch for each motor and one runs one motor and everything else on the boat. Maybe in time I will figure it out, but can't yet see the logic of two OFF, 1 & 2 switches. Anyone have a similar situation and can provide an elementary turtorial for me?

 

[BobP]

You didn't say how many batteries you have.

 

[fish-n-fun]

Two batteries and of course I failed to mention there is an ALL position on both switches.

 

[jrocket567]

West Marine has a good article talking about a multiple battery switch set up:
http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wc...sor/10001/-1/10001/BatteryCombinersRelays.htm

The two switch thing does seem a little different. Most Ive seen are either 1 or 3. I personally have the 1 switch with the 1-2-both-off settings (but also only have a single motor to crank). If nothing else, that is two fewer switches that I need to make sure are in the right position (and 2 fewer breakable items).

Read through the West marine article and see if that helps. If not, let me know

Jay

P.S. Heres another one: http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wc...or/10001/-1/10001/Batteries-SecondBattery.htm

 

[Curmudgeon]

Not that weird at all in a two engine/two batt configuration. Two switches allow each batt to do it's own engine, each batt to do the other engine, either batt to do both engines, or both batts to do it all in parallel (for emergencies). I think some may be hung up on this start/house concept when not all boats are or need to be wired that way. Oh, and two also allows for either engine to be totally isolated and de-energized.

I also split the accessory bus so not all accessories are lost if an engine goes down and can't be crossed over ...

 

[BobP]

That being said, it was the factory setup for two battery boats.

It's exactly how my rig is setup. The ship's main power feed connects to the same post on the selector as the starboard engine.

Of course this means the ships load sees the voltage drop when cranking, my raymarine gear restarts itself, Garmin stays on. Except for the nuisance beeping of the Ray head unit, if I used radar often and cranked often, I would be delayed since the radar needs about 30 seconds or so to warm up.

The selector switch should be so selected 1 or 2 so that each engine is on it's own primary battery, or OFF when leaving dock. ALL is used for emergency start, then switch out of ALL.

 

[fish-n-fun]

You will notice that I started this discussion back in January. It is now July and my boat has touched the water twice, once in January for my sea trial when purchased and once in June to check it out after much labor of love. It is pretty much where I want it and expect to put it in a slip for the balance of the year. But, I am still not comfortable with the Grady battery wiring so I have changed it. Thought I’d run it by all you experts before I put it in the water in case there is a downside I didn’t consider. Recall that I have two engines, two switches (Off, 1, ALL, 2) and two batteries. Where each engine was the common terminal on each switch I now have it set up so that each battery is the common one. Thus each battery can run engine 1, engine 2, or both. And I have added a third ON/OFF switch for the electronics. My goal here is to eliminate the problem of shut-down of the electronics whenever I start the starboard engine which I may do frequently when trolling as I like to alternate engines. Now I can use one battery for both engines and one battery for electronics only, except in an instance where the “engine” battery should fail. When not trolling I would expect to set both batteries to take advantage of the engine alternators. All comments welcome.

 

[jehines3]

I tried to sketch it per your description and couldn't, maybe you could elaborate or post a sketch. The logic for your change did not make sense to me. It would have done exatly what you have now before the rewire if you just added the seperate on/off switch for house loads wired to the battery input terminal of one switch. I'd suggest changing it back since per your description its seems like you would need to cross connect the switches to get each motor to fire off each switch. In the old configuration you could set both motors to the same battery and dedicate a house one if desired by using the seperate on/off switch off an existing input. jh

 

[whitey]

You will notice that I started this discussion back in January. It is now July and my boat has touched the water twice, once in January for my sea trial when purchased and once in June to check it out after much labor of love. It is pretty much where I want it and expect to put it in a slip for the balance of the year. But, I am still not comfortable with the Grady battery wiring so I have changed it. Thought I’d run it by all you experts before I put it in the water in case there is a downside I didn’t consider. Recall that I have two engines, two switches (Off, 1, ALL, 2) and two batteries. Where each engine was the common terminal on each switch I now have it set up so that each battery is the common one. Thus each battery can run engine 1, engine 2, or both. And I have added a third ON/OFF switch for the electronics. My goal here is to eliminate the problem of shut-down of the electronics whenever I start the starboard engine which I may do frequently when trolling as I like to alternate engines. Now I can use one battery for both engines and one battery for electronics only, except in an instance where the “engine” battery should fail. When not trolling I would expect to set both batteries to take advantage of the engine alternators. All comments welcome.

use the search function.i found tons of information by searching.a guy who's no longer on this site provided the best information.search jimmy's marine service,this is the same guy who works on my boat.this guy's a pro,if you're in the south jersey area,give him a call.

 

[ocnslr]

I don't think the change you describe is a good idea.

This is from something I have posted in the past.

*************************************************************
Here is our system.

-Twin F150s

-Two starting batteries, each to a 1-2-both-off Perko switch. Either engine can be fed from either battery

-Two deep cycle batteries in parallel, as a house bank, to an On-Off Perko switch, then to the 40-amp feeder breaker for all house loads.

-Aux charging leads from both engines wired to the house bank

-Three-bank Charles charger, wired to each starting battery and the house bank.

-Windlass wired from house bank switch with a separate 40-amp feeder breaker and separate wiring all the way forward.

-Inverter wired from house bank switch with a separate 150-amp feeder breaker to the inverter (four-foot leads in each direction)

Operation:

-Keep the starting battery switches in opposite positions, i.e. 1 & 2 or 2 & 1.

-Keep the house bank switch "on" if there are house loads running.

Simple system. Almost bulletproof. Over 620 hours on the twins since repowering. No chance that running the house bank down will impair your ability to get your engines started.

 

[jehines3]

The cheapest solution, I would put everything back the way it was to factory (two perko switches). Add one more perko On/Both/Off Switch for the house load breaker and connect to each battery. That way you could dedicate battery 1 to the house and battery 2 to both motors and vica versa.

If you don't have the aux charge output leads on your motors, you can use an ACR if you go to a dedicated house bank. You could avoid all the electronics reboot issues if you add the third bank and dedicate to house load. I figured you were trying to avoid the third bank for weight or cost reasons. I just don't think the addition of one on/off switch gives you what you want and switching the inputs and outputs on the switches just does not work in my brain. jh

 

[BobP]

If you are only going to keep two batteries, and you don't want the electronics to reset, you have a few choices, like four.

1. You can buy a device which rides through these voltage drops on start, I think Newmark and others make one, has internal power supply. Much re-wiring to do though.

2. Get a third battery.

3. Dedicate one of existing two batteries for starting only, but I don't recommend this.

4. Add a third 1/2/ both switch for your ships power feed. Then before you start 1st engine, switch ship feed over to other battery, then when starting second battery, switch feed back to battery of running motor.
Besides no resetting of electronics benefit, you will get exercise going back and forth to stern when starting twins.

Me, I need the exercise but too lazy, so I take the resetting and beeping, it's no big deal, comes back up all by itself right away. As a mater of fact, my Raymarine black box FF is so prickly, it resets even when I hit the SW washdown pump.

My Garmin setup is rock solid, nothing shuts it off but my finger. You know where my money is going on electronics upgrade next time around !

I'm also too lazy today to figure out the connections you came up with, besides, it can't solve electronics issue unless both batteries are connected at once to the ships feed uponn start, which means you are parralling batts, or the switches are on auto pilot and switch themselves similar to No. 4 above.

Note - the DIY advise above works for state of New Jersey, it works the same for all states in USA, PR, as well as remainder of the world !

 

[BobP]

Jehines, unless I'm mistaken, the yamaha aux charge/batt lead , is electrically one and the same as the main DC feed. There is no isolation device inside motor.
So it's oferred by Yamaha as a matter of convience? An expensive one at that, at a reduced AWG.

Why not just tie both batt pos terms together between batts directly, at cost savings ?

 

[jehines3]

It it isolated otherwise with just the aux charge lead connected you could crank the starter even with the main positive lead removed. Its connected to the stator/reg. jh

 

[BobP]

I'll check the HPDI manual again, it appeared to be connected to same place internal as Pos feed.

 

[fish-n-fun]

Almost like politics, everyone has a favorite way of doing things. I am much happier with my change. Yes I could have put in the third switch for electronics without a change, and yes I believe you can probably attain the same combinations either way, but the logic in my mind is to be able to tell each battery what to do and not each engine. I can't swear mine was a factory hook-up, put likely it was. It was a worthy discussion anyway.

 

[BobP]

Fish-n-

Whatever floats your boat !

If we didn't do such a good job answering your question and covering the basics, you can try reading about the various combinations of hookups on the Blue Seas website catalog, on line. Just google blue seas. No cost to you.

They explain the pros and cons of each and have a schematic to go along. It's very well done, in my opinion.

Good luck.