ACR, Battery Switch, and Charging

[addisonm06]

Hi All,

Current setup is dual batteries (house/start), blue sea add a battery system with the switch and ACR. I have the ACR wired into the battery side of the switch and am currently using a single battery charger to charge both batteries.

I thought the single battery would be convenient, but now realize that i would rather have a dual bank charger to tend both batteries however they need to be charged.

My question is, can i hook up a dual bank charger to my batteries with the current set up or do i need to change the ACR to the Load side of the switch first?

 

[Scottie]

You can connect a dual bank charger directly to each battery. ACR regulates charge from engine circuit and wouldn't be in play at all when charging externally. Battery switch position would also not matter.

 

[addisonm06]

Hi Scottie,
The ACR also regulates the charge from an external circuit. When it senses a voltage of 13V for 2 minutes, the relay combines the batteries. With the ACR on the on the battery side of the switch, the OFF position of the switch truly turns power off to everything. I believe i recall for a dual bank charger, you want the ACR on the load side; just cannt remember why exactly.

 

[Scottie]

I guess I misread. I missed the part where the ACR was on the battery side of the switch. My bad. Mine, and others I've seen, are always on the load side. On the load side, when the battery switch is off, then both batteries or battery banks are isolated, and a dual bank charger would be used to maintain each battery independently. If you were to connect a dual bank charger to each battery right now, then the ACR would still be trying to regulate voltage to each battery, which would be redundant and unnecessary. I'm not sure it would cause an actual problem, as the ACR wouldn't do anything if you were already supplying equal voltage/amps to each battery, but it would not be the proper method.

 

[addisonm06]

Ah Ok makes perfect sense! Thanks Scottie for the clear up!