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Old 14 April 2011, 20:11   #1
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Battery switch

Hi. Got myself a newish rib, and hope someone can help with the battery switch. Engine is a Yam150 (about 3 yrs old), and there are two batteries. The switch is on/off/both. Can anyone tell me if this is the ideal? Does the engine charge both batteries evenly? Should I always put the switch on both etc etc?
Someone locally suggested a split charge setup could be used....
Help!!
Stevo
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Old 15 April 2011, 02:20   #2
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Depends on what you're trying to do.

Usually, you use the switch in order to make it less likely to end up with insufficient starting power. So, assuming yu have both charged, you run on, say, battery A, and switch to Battery B if A won't start the motor. Use both if neither battery has enough to crank the motor. In that setup, the battery being charged will be whichever is selected on the switch.

To connect it up, Pos from Battery A goes to terminal A on the switch; Pos from Battery B goes to B; and the boat's power gets connected to the switched output.

Note that there are several other ways to configure things, for other desired means.

jky
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Old 15 April 2011, 06:39   #3
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thanks jky. What position should I have the switch in when the engine is running? Can the engine charge both at the same time irrespective of any difference in charge needed by each battery?
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Old 15 April 2011, 06:48   #4
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Many people do run with both connected at once, but this is not ideal for either battery. One way would be to alternate on each trip between the battery you use, that way if one does start to let you down you will know before it becomes too much of a problem.
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Old 15 April 2011, 08:04   #5
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Hey Stevo

If you do decide to swap the switch out....

On the reccomendation of Cookee and a few others we swapped out our switch (as yours) for a BEP switch /split charging system supplied by Merlin http://www.merlinequipment.com/

.....dead easy to fit, quality kit....not cheap, but fit it and forget about having to switch over batteries.

That said, provided your remember to switch between 1 and 2 your system as fitted is fine!

Dan
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Old 16 April 2011, 15:34   #6
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thanks jky. What position should I have the switch in when the engine is running? Can the engine charge both at the same time irrespective of any difference in charge needed by each battery?
In normal running, any position (except off) is fine. You will be charging whichever battery you have selected on the switch.

For starting, you select one battery or the other, unless there is insufficient power in either, then you select both.

When drifting or on the hook, select one battery or the other to avoid running both batteries down.


If you want to be able to isolate yet still charge both batteries, you need something like a "battery integrator", which is an electronic switch that connects the batteries when a charge voltage is present, but disconnects them otherwise. It sits in a parallel circuit delivering charging current to the batteries (the switch wiring remains the same, but charging current to an unselected battery gets routed through the integrator.)

That allows you to set your switch to, say, Battery 1, which will supply current to start the motor; yet when running, both batteries receive charge. Shut down the motor, and the batteries are isolated again. Your switch controls which battery(ies) gets connected to the output of the switch; the charging current takes a different route through the integrator to the unselected battery.

Another adantage of this is that you can't damage the charging system by accidentally switching to "None" while running, as the integrator is still connected to the batteries. Disadvantage is that it's harder to isolate the batteries to just themselves; you always have a very slight draw from powering the integrator (I think; you'd have to check the documentation of the unit in question to be sure.)

Lots of info on these units on the web.

jky
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Old 28 April 2011, 01:43   #7
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I think it's okay to have both running so the power coming out of two batteries would be balanced. Use the battery switch if you don't feel comfortable in one battery. Say Battery A don't function well like Battery B.
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Old 02 May 2011, 14:07   #8
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I think it's okay to have both running so the power coming out of two batteries would be balanced.
Welcome to ribnet!

I thin kthe problem with that arises when one battery starts to give up. I forget the physics behind it, but Ohms Law essentially puts the lion's share of the charge into the gubbed battery, which due to it's ill health won't give as much back, meanwhile the good battery isn't being charged fully.....

Apologies for the layman's way of phrasing it!
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Old 02 May 2011, 16:14   #9
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Not just that, but when you remove the charge voltage while set to "Both" (i.e. shut the engine down), the bad battery pulls the good one down.

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Old 02 May 2011, 17:12   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stevo View Post
Hi. Got myself a newish rib, and hope someone can help with the battery switch. Engine is a Yam150 (about 3 yrs old), and there are two batteries. The switch is on/off/both. Can anyone tell me if this is the ideal? Does the engine charge both batteries evenly? Should I always put the switch on both etc etc?
Someone locally suggested a split charge setup could be used....
Help!!
Stevo
Stevo- If this has been rigged sensibly then by putting the switch on both the engine will charge both batteries and should charge No 1 first and then No 2. If the switch can be change to ON OFF 1 AND 2 then the charging will work in the same manner, I got that direct from Yamaha and we used to run the 150s. We still have Yam 100s and Yam 250/300 and these are set up in the same way, twin batteries, a single switch showing BOTH, OFF, 1 ,2 and we were adViced to always select BOTH so charge will be done in order.
I guess others with better knowledge may tell different but this process has never let me down on keeping batteries charged.
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Old 03 May 2011, 13:22   #11
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That switch must have some electronics inside. The laws of physics wouldn't allow it to do that otherwise!
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Old 03 May 2011, 17:10   #12
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Stevo- If this has been rigged sensibly then by putting the switch on both the engine will charge both batteries and should charge No 1 first and then No 2.
Not with a standard battery switch. Switching to "Both" will connect the 2 anodes together, and connect the 2 cathodes together, creating what is in essence a double-capacity battery. Any charging or discharging will affect both batteries simultaneously (assuming the batteries are in usable conditions. If they're not, you'll attempt to charge the bad one, and the good one won't receive the voltage necessary to charge.)

Even with an isolator, selecting "both" will parallel the two batteries.


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Old 03 May 2011, 17:26   #13
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Not with a standard battery switch. Switching to "Both" will connect the 2 anodes together, and connect the 2 cathodes together, creating what is in essence a double-capacity battery. Any charging or discharging will affect both batteries simultaneously (assuming the batteries are in usable conditions. If they're not, you'll attempt to charge the bad one, and the good one won't receive the voltage necessary to charge.)

Even with an isolator, selecting "both" will parallel the two batteries.


jky
Interesting, what is a non standard battery switch as I was with the Yam engineers recently with ours and this is what we were told how it worked, It may be they have rigged ours differently to standard as we have to have two batteries for commercial coding
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Old 04 May 2011, 15:30   #14
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Interesting, what is a non standard battery switch
I said "standard" to identify a make-before-break, A-Both-B-Off switch. I don't know offhand of any others that are around, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that someone has gone the "add some electronics" route. The "standard" statement was to exclude any oddball units that might be around. Sorry for any confusion.

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