Stand alone battery charging for pot puller

[Teesea80]

Hey Guys,

 New to the group. Purchased a 2012 Arima SR21 explorer last year. Finally picked up a pot puller from Lester's. I decided to wire the puller to a stand alone battery as I will be adding some additional electronics to the boat (light bar and rerouting downriggers). I fish out of Juneau, AK and could use the additional lighting at night on my way back to the dock. Currently not hooked up yet but I've got the battery in the head/closet. Anyone have any recommendations on charging solutions?

[davidsea]

  It would help to know more about your boat....Single engine, single plus kicker, or twins?   Do you troll with the main, does the kicker have an alternator?   One battery or two, size, type and age of batteries, type of battery switch? Is the boat trailered or moored, is AC power available when it's not being used?

[Teesea80]

davidsea thanks for the response. Single Suzuki 200 (2021) with BF 9.9 Suzuki kicker (new installed this year) Troll on the kicker mainly. Dual optima blue top batteries 870 MCA/750 CCA, purchased a third blue top optima for the pot puller (all new batteries April this year). Engines and house batteries are on a switch) pot puller battery is currently not. To be honest I am not sure if the kicker has an alternator. Boat is trailered and does have access to power when stored. Thanks again.

[markymark]

I have no recommendations but I love Juneau and get up there from time to time. Love those tacos at Deckhand Dave's.

[calcoast]

Before I went lithium on my boat I had two Optima AGMs. I used one for starting and one for house loads which included my trap puller. They were connected by a Blue Seas ACR which charged the house battery when running and protected the starting battery when the house was below a certain voltage. Worked very well. If I had three batteries like you I would probably put another ACR in between the two house batteries. In that situation the engine would charge Start/House 1/House 2 in that order.

[davidsea]

Before I went lithium on my boat I had two Optima AGMs. I used one for starting and one for house loads which included my trap puller. They were connected by a Blue Seas ACR which charged the house battery when running and protected the starting battery when the house was below a certain voltage. Worked very well. If I had three batteries like you I would probably put another ACR in between the two house batteries. In that situation the engine would charge Start/House 1/House 2 in that order.

  ACR's are smart, but not that smart.  If an ACR sees an increase above about 12.8V, indicating that there's charging input from the alternator, it triggers and starts charging the second battery connected.  The second battery voltage would then go up immediately and trigger the second ACR, connecting the 3rd battery.  Essentially, you'd be doing the same thing as just connecting batteries 2 and 3 in parallel without the extra ACR, so there's no benefit to adding it.  If you really need to isolate the 3rd battery, the cheapest way would be to use a switchable circuit breaker at the battery, sized to protect the max. drain of the puller.  Maybe one of the resident electricians can chime in with a more elegant solution, but I'm not sure about charging 2 batteries in parallel as well as a 3rd (starting) battery, from a single alternator and ACR.
    Personally, I'm a fan of running ONLY the motor on the main, with the kicker and everything else in the boat on the house.  If one side of the system craps out, you can ALWAYS move the boat, either on the main or kicker.....m2c

[positize]

A Victron Orion XS DCDC charger would be a good fit.  With the XS, you can program/set a maximum of current it will draw from your alternator to charge that third battery, leaving enough left over current to ensure your start battery gets enough charge.  For example, if your main motor has a 55 amp alternator, you could set the Orion XS to 25A and 25A would be a good amount of current to charge your third battery, but would ensure you are leaving 30A to charge the start battery.  A big advantage of the DCDC approach is they are unidirectional unlike an ACR that is bidirectional: when an ACR closes (when your motor is running), the most charged battery is always drained down towards the least charged battery until the batteries reach equilibrium.  So with an ACR, if either battery is having a problem, your system tends to degrade toward the level of the bad battery.  With a DCDC, the current can only flow one direction: from the alternator towards the target (third) battery, so that ensures a heavily discharged target (third) battery will have no effect on your start battery.  I'm not a fan of doing anything that may discharge your start battery, it should always priority to receive charge and stay charged: a DCDC charger will do that for you.

I've had extremely good luck using Victron products.  The Victron XS includes an automatic sensing circuit that determines when your engine is running (senses the voltage, similar to an ACR), and that sensing circuit is completely configurable for voltage, time and hysteresis (unlike an ACR) so you can adjust it to work for just about any engine/battery/wiring combination (including LifePO4).  The Victon DCDC charger is pretty bulletproof by my experience, other brands not even close.  I'm also a fan of adding a SmartShunt to each battery so you know exactly the State of Charge of each battery instead of guessing whether each is charged or not.

[calcoast]

Before I went lithium on my boat I had two Optima AGMs. I used one for starting and one for house loads which included my trap puller. They were connected by a Blue Seas ACR which charged the house battery when running and protected the starting battery when the house was below a certain voltage. Worked very well. If I had three batteries like you I would probably put another ACR in between the two house batteries. In that situation the engine would charge Start/House 1/House 2 in that order.

  ACR's are smart, but not that smart.  If an ACR sees an increase above about 12.8V, indicating that there's charging input from the alternator, it triggers and starts charging the second battery connected.  The second battery voltage would then go up immediately and trigger the second ACR, connecting the 3rd battery.  Essentially, you'd be doing the same thing as just connecting batteries 2 and 3 in parallel without the extra ACR, so there's no benefit to adding it.  If you really need to isolate the 3rd battery, the cheapest way would be to use a switchable circuit breaker at the battery, sized to protect the max. drain of the puller.  Maybe one of the resident electricians can chime in with a more elegant solution, but I'm not sure about charging 2 batteries in parallel as well as a 3rd (starting) battery, from a single alternator and ACR.
    Personally, I'm a fan of running ONLY the motor on the main, with the kicker and everything else in the boat on the house.  If one side of the system craps out, you can ALWAYS move the boat, either on the main or kicker.....m2c

I agree with you. The only reason I suggested another ACR is because he already purchased the third battery. As I mentioned, I prefer a two battery setup. I did not mention paralleling the #2 and #3 batteries because I don't like that setup. Too many connections for me. I prefer the automation of the ACR (or the Victron DC/DC for my lithium) due to the ease of use. I have been happy to get rid of extra switches. Many options to accomplish this. If he were to ask for my recommendation I would say my current setup is the best I have had. I have posted it before. Have to run.

[Barnaclebob]

How many pots will you be pulling?  I don't have any issues doing 16 pulls of a 25lb shrimp pot from 300ft.  When using a pot puller your motor is usually running so that helps out some.  I draw about 35-40 Amps and it takes about 2-3 min to pull a shrimp pot.  That's about 20-30 Ah for 16 pulls, well under the capacity of a single battery let alone 2 connected via ACR and a few Amps coming in from the main at idle.

It doesn't really matter how much electronics you have on your boat, it matters how much you will be using at one time.  My vote is that a 3rd battery is unnecessary.  Just make sure the 2 are connected via an ACR.

Awesome looking boat!

[Tunacious]

I run a lot of stuff on my boat.

I'm confident I run more electric gear than any other boat in my 21 ft SR size

I use two batteries.

I see no need for three batteries

[fishmeister]

I run a lot of stuff on my boat.

I'm confident I run more electric gear than any other boat in my 21 ft SR size

I use two batteries.

I see no need for three batteries

 

I think Tunacious is the undisputed King of drilling holes to add/modify/adapt new items to an Arima.  He probably has about as many "high-draw" items as anyone (if not the most).  If he can work with two batteries, you probably can too.