| Page 1 of 2 | 1 | 2 |
|
|
How do you charge your windlass battery?
Our windlass battery is in the chain locker at the foremost part of the
boat. There are some medium size wires running from the windlass battery to the main house bank with a switch to allow me to charge the windlass battery when the house bank is being charged by the engine. I disconnect the windlass battery when the engine is not running. Sometimes I forget to connect the windlass battery or forget to disconnect the windlass battery. Just wondering where others place their windlass battery and how do they charge it? Bert van den Berg S/V Guinevere New Zealand --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com |
How do you charge your windlass battery?
On Wed, 15 Jan 2014 11:02:32 +1300, "Bert van den Berg"
wrote: Our windlass battery is in the chain locker at the foremost part of the boat. There are some medium size wires running from the windlass battery to the main house bank with a switch to allow me to charge the windlass battery when the house bank is being charged by the engine. I disconnect the windlass battery when the engine is not running. Sometimes I forget to connect the windlass battery or forget to disconnect the windlass battery. Just wondering where others place their windlass battery and how do they charge it? Bert van den Berg S/V Guinevere New Zealand If you are charging he Windless battery by connecting to the house bank there are, if I remember correctly, switches that can be adjusted to connect the second battery only after the house bank reaches a specific voltage and disconnect it when the batteries falls to a lower voltage which will do pretty much what you want. I think that West Marine sold them for connecting the house and start batteries for charging (in a two battery system). I don't remember prices but it was sufficiently higher then an alternate (or I was too cheap) so I never bought one :-) -- Cheers, Bruce in Bangkok |
How do you charge your windlass battery?
On Wed, 15 Jan 2014 08:33:52 -0500, Gogarty
wrote: In article , says... We did not have a separate battery for the windlass. We ran heavy guage cable from the battery bank (house and start batteries) to the windlass through a circuit breaker. Better weight distribution, batteries always charged, no charge cables lieing around when not needed. Circuit breaker easily accessible. I had a forty foot sail boat rigged like that, and wired with large welding cables. I calculated that for a run of 80 ft. (up and back) and a max amperage of 75 that it required #2 cables to carry the load .... the welding cables were even larger then that :-) -- Cheers, Bruce in Bangkok |
How do you charge your windlass battery?
Hi All,
I originally considered running heavy cables from the house bank to the windlass but there was no cost or weight savings. Our thoughts were that having a separate 110 amp hour windlass battery gave us some redundancy should we ever screw up and deplete the main 660 amp-hour house bank (which is also used to start the engine). I've done this once and believe me, the trouble of lugging the windlass battery from the forepeak to the engine compartment taught me to be more careful. The Voltage Sensitive Relay sold by several shops are intended to direct all the alternator charge current to a start battery until the start battery reaches a certain voltage then it parallels the house bank to the start battery and continues to charge both banks. My situation is slightly different. I also have two 90 watts solar panels with a solar charge regulator connected to the house bank and would like the windlass battery to get some charge whenever the house bank voltage exceeds the windlass battery voltage and disconnect the two when the house bank voltage is less than the windlass battery voltage. Still, it's good to hear from others how they handle this situation. Cheers, Bert " --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com |
How do you charge your windlass battery?
We have a setup similar to yours. However, we also have a combiner for the
start and windlass batteries (both on the same unit), allowing us to charge either just the house, or both, as situations warrant. We're very careful about running the house battery alone for loads. In addition, both of the start and windlass batteries have circuit breakers on them, so we can separate them if needed.. The cables to the windlass battery are still somewhat considerable, but the cables to the windlass are impressive. If we were to rely on some battery to heft it remotely, the cables would have been huge. I'd also hate to have a house battery drawn down by the level of amps used in the windlass, but that's probably because I've had to start the engine and get the anchor up in cases of lower-than-I'd-like house battery state, and that's the way the boat was configured when we bought it. HTH L8R Skip -- Morgan 461 #2 SV Flying Pig KI4MPC See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery ! Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog I expect to pass this way but once; any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. - Etienne Griellet |
How do you charge your windlass battery?
On Fri, 17 Jan 2014 07:05:29 +1300, "Bert van den Berg"
wrote: Hi All, I originally considered running heavy cables from the house bank to the windlass but there was no cost or weight savings. Our thoughts were that having a separate 110 amp hour windlass battery gave us some redundancy should we ever screw up and deplete the main 660 amp-hour house bank (which is also used to start the engine). I've done this once and believe me, the trouble of lugging the windlass battery from the forepeak to the engine compartment taught me to be more careful. The Voltage Sensitive Relay sold by several shops are intended to direct all the alternator charge current to a start battery until the start battery reaches a certain voltage then it parallels the house bank to the start battery and continues to charge both banks. My situation is slightly different. I also have two 90 watts solar panels with a solar charge regulator connected to the house bank and would like the windlass battery to get some charge whenever the house bank voltage exceeds the windlass battery voltage and disconnect the two when the house bank voltage is less than the windlass battery voltage. Still, it's good to hear from others how they handle this situation. Cheers, Bert I had a look at the old West Marine catalog I mentioned and the "battery combiner" connects another battery to the main battery when battery voltage reaches 13.3 VDC and disconnects it when the voltage drops to below that figure. An alternate is to connect using a diode which is essentially an electronic one way valve so the remote battery can receive a charge bit not provide voltage back to the parent battery but that evolves a slight voltage drop through the diode. -- Cheers, Bruce in Bangkok |
How do you charge your windlass battery?
On Thu, 16 Jan 2014 16:40:03 -0500, "Flying Pig"
wrote: We have a setup similar to yours. However, we also have a combiner for the start and windlass batteries (both on the same unit), allowing us to charge either just the house, or both, as situations warrant. We're very careful about running the house battery alone for loads. In addition, both of the start and windlass batteries have circuit breakers on them, so we can separate them if needed.. The cables to the windlass battery are still somewhat considerable, but the cables to the windlass are impressive. If we were to rely on some battery to heft it remotely, the cables would have been huge. I'd also hate to have a house battery drawn down by the level of amps used in the windlass, but that's probably because I've had to start the engine and get the anchor up in cases of lower-than-I'd-like house battery state, and that's the way the boat was configured when we bought it. HTH L8R Skip Although the bow thruster and anchor windlass need significant currents when they are used, they are normally used for such short times that the actual energy (amp-hours) used from the batteries is almost insignificant. My anchor windlass (31 ft power boat) is fused at 80 amps - say it draws 60 amps when raising the anchor. It will typically run 2 - 3 minutes to raise the anchor - at 60 amps, this is 120 - 180 amp-minutes, or only 2 - 3 amp-hours. The bow thruster may draw 200 amps, but is only run for a few seconds at a time - normally well under a minute when docking or un-docking, so that again is only a couple of amp-hours - hardly worth worrying about when considering your daily power useage. -- Peter Bennett, VE7CEI Vancouver BC peterbb (at) telus.net Vancouver Power Squadron: http://vancouver.powersquadron.ca |
How do you charge your windlass battery?
On Thu, 16 Jan 2014 23:51:15 -0800, Peter Bennett
wrote: On Thu, 16 Jan 2014 16:40:03 -0500, "Flying Pig" wrote: We have a setup similar to yours. However, we also have a combiner for the start and windlass batteries (both on the same unit), allowing us to charge either just the house, or both, as situations warrant. We're very careful about running the house battery alone for loads. In addition, both of the start and windlass batteries have circuit breakers on them, so we can separate them if needed.. The cables to the windlass battery are still somewhat considerable, but the cables to the windlass are impressive. If we were to rely on some battery to heft it remotely, the cables would have been huge. I'd also hate to have a house battery drawn down by the level of amps used in the windlass, but that's probably because I've had to start the engine and get the anchor up in cases of lower-than-I'd-like house battery state, and that's the way the boat was configured when we bought it. HTH L8R Skip Although the bow thruster and anchor windlass need significant currents when they are used, they are normally used for such short times that the actual energy (amp-hours) used from the batteries is almost insignificant. My anchor windlass (31 ft power boat) is fused at 80 amps - say it draws 60 amps when raising the anchor. It will typically run 2 - 3 minutes to raise the anchor - at 60 amps, this is 120 - 180 amp-minutes, or only 2 - 3 amp-hours. The bow thruster may draw 200 amps, but is only run for a few seconds at a time - normally well under a minute when docking or un-docking, so that again is only a couple of amp-hours - hardly worth worrying about when considering your daily power useage. True. In fact on most cruising boats you can haul the anchor in by hand too :-) If you really, really have to :-)) -- Cheers, Bruce in Bangkok |
How do you charge your windlass battery?
"Peter Bennett" wrote in message
news.com... Although the bow thruster and anchor windlass need significant currents when they are used, they are normally used for such short times that the actual energy (amp-hours) used from the batteries is almost insignificant. My anchor windlass (31 ft power boat) is fused at 80 amps - say it draws 60 amps when raising the anchor. It will typically run 2 - 3 minutes to raise the anchor - at 60 amps, this is 120 - 180 amp-minutes, or only 2 - 3 amp-hours. The bow thruster may draw 200 amps, but is only run for a few seconds at a time - normally well under a minute when docking or un-docking, so that again is only a couple of amp-hours - hardly worth worrying about when considering your daily power useage. -- Peter Bennett, VE7CEI Vancouver BC I agree about the AH load. My problem is not having dedicated power to that unit; even if you are absolutely sure that your house bank could handle the load AND start your engine if needed; sending all those amps a long way needs monster cable by comparison... The admiral made me pitch the mikey based on the amps it would use; it's the same argument, other than that it's not going to affect starting the engine (at least if we've remembered to go to "house" and not "both"!), but it's gone, none the less. L8R Skip, in Vero -- Morgan 461 #2 SV Flying Pig KI4MPC See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery ! Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog I expect to pass this way but once; any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. - Etienne Griellet |
How do you charge your windlass battery?
"Flying Pig" wrote in message
... trim I agree about the AH load. My problem is not having dedicated power to that unit; even if you are absolutely sure that your house bank could handle the load AND start your engine if needed; sending all those amps a long way needs monster cable by comparison... Your problem is needing as much or more amperage than your average two-bedroom home. -- Sir Gregory |
| All times are GMT +1. The time now is 06:29 AM. |
|
Powered by vBulletin® Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004 - 2014 BoatBanter.com