rewire

as soon as this 3 feet of snow melts im going to re-wire my sound system to the batteries, last summer on my first run out i melted a terminal off one of my batteries and as far as i know fried my ecu.. so this year im going to pick up a ACR and a few different distro blocks for the sound system. i have 3 batteries and i wanna do one isolated to just the block for a starting and the other 2 to run the sound system and all the other stuff. i think in my head i messed something up and thats why i killed the battery and ecu. so im looking for a little help and it would probably be easier with a diagram. i do have a sector switch, 1,2, all, off.

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last summer on my first run out i melted a terminal off one of my batteries

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This sounds like there may have been too many terminals on that post, or they were incorrectly stacked, or loose. A traditional 1/2/BOTH/OFF switch is not the ideal switch for use with an ACR. I would suggest sticking with this switch, since you are running 2 batteries on your house bank. Depending on their total Ah, depleting them at the sandbar, will likely cause the ACR to bounce open/closed. This limits the stereo use, until the house bank recovers enough for the ACR to stay combined.

ok. i just dont want this to happen again, i dont know it was because they were stacked but if i remember correctly the terminal that melted was my stand alone battery. once i can get into the boat ill pull the wires off and write down all i have for the setup.

My understanding and experience with ACR is, it isolates the house battery from your stereo. All stereo goes to one battery bank.
All boat stuff goes to boat house.

At the sandbar the ACR isolates your boat stuff, such as your starter and bower.

The stereo bank can run completely dead.

But when you click the ignition on the boat will start.

Then the ACR looks at starter battery voltage and when is considered full and a 2 minute time limit is reached it will switch charging to the stereo bank.

It will now charge your stereo bank until it senses your starter battery stopping and it will then top off your starter battery again.

The system utilizes a On Off Combine. On is operates normally. Off is just that off. Combine makes all batteries act as 1.

Maybe I'm wrong and I miss understand the system but that's how I use mine and Ihavenever had a dead starter battery in 5 summers but have had dead stereo batteries until I switched to my 6v batteries.

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Originally Posted by motosno963

ok. i just dont want this to happen again, i dont know it was because they were stacked but if i remember correctly the terminal that melted was my stand alone battery. once i can get into the boat ill pull the wires off and write down all i have for the setup.

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I dont want to see it happen again either. What you described seems to be common on golf carts. Check out some of those forums and you will see the results of loose cables or cables stacked in the incorrect order. Your rewire will likely solve the issue, all be it inadvertently, but there is a slim chance it could be repeated, without knowing the root cause.

Just some additional thoughts on how a typical ACR operates. In a common configuration, the main cranking battery will receive a charge from the alternator whenever the engine is running. The status of the ACR has no bearing on this. It does not control charge between the two banks as in deciding which one is low and needs charged. The main cranking bank always gets a charge. What it does do, is either close to combine the house bank to the main bank, when the main bank voltage is above the threshold (this indicates the alt is charging) and then opens to isolate the main bank from the house bank when the main bank is below the voltage threshold, which indicates there is considerable load on the house bank.

Having worked around all kinds of boats, including big ones with actual house loads like a frige, A/C, cabin lights, etc, I have a different definition of house loads and boat loads, then above. To make it simple, if its needed to make the boat go, its a main boat load. If its something you might want to have on when the boat is at anchor, its a house load. For a small boat like a tow boat that does not have a frige, a/c microwave, stove, etc, the stereo and mood lighting IMO, fall into this house load category. Other thinks like ballast pumps, 12V sockets, underwater LEDs and anchor light would also fall into this house load group.

MLA makes since. Just different then how I was told.

For me nothing is connected to my stereo bank except my stereo. All of my stereo ground to my stereo bank. This eliminates any outside noise in my stereo.

I was also advised to run the RBG LED controller off a different bank than the stereo to ensure unwanted noise that can occur. Orignal plans I would have wired it to the stereo bank.

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Originally Posted by viking

I was also advised to run the RBG LED controller off a different bank than the stereo to ensure unwanted noise that can occur. Orignal plans I would have wired it to the stereo bank.

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Strangle enough, we've had some RGB noise coming in on the speaker wires as they run parallel through the tower. Isolating the controller to a different battery made no difference. If you are using a music controller that interfaces with the system either pre or post amp, I would want it on the same battery source as the audio, just to make sure we dont get a loop.

@MMandley,

How yours is configured, is not wrong by any means, it comes down to how each individual intends to use the boat. If you spend a lot of time out after dusk, then I want nothing drawing from the cranking bank, but the starter. If I have 3-4 impeller ballast pumps filling 3-5 thousand in ballast while im engine off and chilling, id rather have it drawing off the house bank.

Well I'm going to have to rethink the WS RGB controller plans. I guess I can always change it if interference rears is head.

As far as ACR switch goes I would think that most on towboat forums would prefer to extend the life of the tunes for as long as possible which would mean running the blower, ballast/bilge pumps and other acc. off cranking batt since alternator is going to be somewhat maintaining that bank throughout the day. And worst comes to worst the switch allows for combining the batts to start in the event both are almost fully drained to at least get you started and back to the dock or home base? Am I wrong?

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Originally Posted by viking

Well I'm going to have to rethink the WS RGB controller plans. I guess I can always change it if interference rears is head.

As far as ACR switch goes I would think that most on towboat forums would prefer to extend the life of the tunes for as long as possible which would mean running the blower, ballast/bilge pumps and other acc. off cranking batt since alternator is going to be somewhat maintaining that bank throughout the day. And worst comes to worst the switch allows for combining the batts to start in the event both are almost fully drained to at least get you started and back to the dock or home base? Am I wrong?

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Agreed - this is our preferred approach. Out of curiosity - what are your rgb plans? (or is that more appropriate in a separate thread)