Battery Switches

[Rjmycock]

I recently took owner ship on a 31 TE and am hoping the forum will advance the timeline of my learning curve? On my maiden ride everything was going welling until about 30 minutes into the ride when first my radar when out, I think it said "Error #2" and then both GPS units and then the auto pilot showed low voltage, then nothing. I returned to the dock to experiment. What I first noticed is that all three electric switches where on battery #1, I have a house switch, a port switch and a starboard switch, I have three batteries and I also have a 4th battery the is set up independently for the Genset.. When I switch the port and starboard to both the electronic's came to life. This was on my last day of my first visit to the boat which is located in NC and I am in MA, I did not have a chance for another ride to see how things would operate. . My questions are:

1. Any idea what might have happened other than not enough juice?
2. If you have the same battery set up any recommendations on the best way to run?

I believe my voltage meters were showing somewhere above 12 at idle.

Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated?

[Maid Marian]

I have a 2002 31 with twin yanmars. When I bought the boat there was a jumper installed behind the battery switches connecting the house battery to one of the engine batteries. I believe this was done so that the house battery would be charging any time you were running. The problem with this design is it would put more load on one alternator. I removed the jumper. Now I alternate charging circuits every time I use the boat. There are 3 battery switches. Pos 1 on each switch connects its dedicated battery to its associated load. Position 2 on each switch connects an alternate source for that switch load. ( one of the other battery switches have to be in all or position 2). Normal proceedure for me is to have one engine battery in all and the house in all while running.
Alternate between engines on each trip when charging the house battery.

Hope this helps,
Steven

[RobS]

It sounds like the battery that your electronics were drawing from was not being charged when you were running. What you will find with Albins is that no too are alike. If you don't have one, get a digital multi-meter (nothing fancy a $30 radio shack unit will do) and spend some time at the dock learning your battery setup. You need to figure out how it is wired and what is being charged when, ie different battery switch settings, on-board charger vs. engine alternator, etc., etc. Even without being charged the battery should have been able to run your electronics for more than 30 minutes so some investigative work is needed...

[jleonard]

I believe my voltage meters were showing somewhere above 12 at idle.

They should show more like 14 volts if they are being charged.

[RobS]

Were the alternators load tested as part of the survey? Also, don't turn your battery switches to OFF or passed the OFF position when she's running, you can damage the voltage regulator in the alternator.

[Rjmycock]

Thank you all for the good thoughts. I will be back to the boat in early April and will have time to hopefully figure out what is going on. If anyone has more thoughts please keep them coming.

[jleonard]

Were the alternators load tested as part of the survey? Also, don't turn your battery switches to OFF or passed the OFF position when she's running, you can damage the voltage regulator in the alternator.

Hmmm....the Delco alternators used on the Cummins 6B series are "load dump protected" meaning you can switch the batterys without damage to the alternaor (as long as it is not maxing out).
Might be something to consider if you need to replace that alternator (IF a Delco will fit).

[RobS]

You can switch the batteries because the switches are "make before you break" but to actually turn them to OFF is where I had read that the problem occurs. I never turned the switch to OFF and experienced the problem was just passing along what I had read...

[Chuck Waygood]

Since no one else mentioned this, it is possible that you have a bad battery if the switches to #1 go just to that battery. When you turned to "all" you picked up current from the other battery. But if you leave the switches on "all" the bad battery will run down the good one. So get that tester and find out if #1 is bad and check out the cabling sequence also. Good luck.

[whwells]

There is good information for all here.

Maid Marian "Steve": I also have twin Yanmars. It has been my practive with this boat and previous boats when running to put the switch at "Both" expecting that each will be fully and equally charged. That seems to be the case with the present Albin Yanmars/ and since I owned the previous Luhrs with twin 140 Yanmars for sometime I know it worked with that boat. Way back there was a twin Whaler I/B and it did the same.
So my question for you is there something about the 315 Yanmars and it's charging system the favors alternate charging? As others have pointed out these same boats are frequently built different.

Rob S: Again I don't know how many times but surely a number I have switched to a different battery while the engine was running. Maybe just luck it has not caused me a problem. Short answer I don't intend to take the chance again.

As always the great thing about the forum is we can learn from other members.

whwells "Howard'
2006 35te Sportfisher/Conv.
Anacortes, Wa.

[Rjmycock]

Again thanks all, electricity provides for lot's of thoughts and comments. I have been reading about Battery Tester's and I see one in my immediate future. No doubt I will run my battery switch set up differently than the one that I found the boat with. I remember once on a previous boat when it was hauled and serviced that the Yard changed the fuel shut off's and we "ran out of fuel" with 500 gal on board, not realizing that some unknown person had changed how the fuel flow was handled. Until then we had no real knowledge of how the engines were feed. Well my understanding of the Electricity flow is about the same as my understanding of the fuel flow on the previous boat but i am starting to get the picture. Please keep the thoughts coming.

[Mariner]

It's important to understand that Albin grossly overbuilt their electrical handling systems, and, as a result, had to resort to some unconventional switching methods.

For example, in our boat, there were two main battery banks when it left the factory (a third was added later, but that is beside the point). Rather than the typical 1-ALL-2-OFF switch, feeding two batteries into a single load that serves both the engine and house, they used two such switches, side by side. This allows the Engine and House batteries, to service the Engine and House loads independently with no connection between the two. But it ALSO allows you to interconnect the two so that you can charge the house battery bank from the engine. The connectors for "2" on the switches just have a wire running between them (from one switch to the other). That way, by selecting "ALL" on both switches, you are combining both banks and both loads into one big system. But they didn't label ANY of this, nor did they provide a user's manual. So, unless you're the original owner who went through a detailed orientation with the dealer on how it works, or you've spent some serious time crawling around and tracing wires, you'd never understand any of it.

Since our boat has several different users, only some of which are interested in crawling around in the bilge, I started looking at alternatives to make it simpler to use. There are some charging relays that could be employed, but due to the over-building of the electrical system, the versions necessary to match the capacity of the rest of the system are extremely expensive (4 digits). Instead, I opted to do some custom labeling for the switches, and create a couple laminated instruction sheets that are attached to the switch panel, making it fairly simple to know how the switches are supposed to be set in any given situation. Now, remembering to make those switch changes as your situation changes....well that is another challenge.

[Rjmycock]

I am just back from a second visit to the boat, this time I was better prepared for options on what to be looking for with the electrical system. First the batteries (3) all appeared to be in serviceable condition putting out around 13-14 amps. The alternator out put was at 14. I ran the boat with the house battery on 1, the starboard side engine on both and the port side on 2. Ran the boat for 4 hours two different times and everything worked great with batteries and alternators doing what they should. I am still at a loss as to why when all three switches were on position 1 that the electronics failed but ALL's Well at the moment.

It's nice to know about that the electrical system is so over built, I will take more time to get to understand how things are set up in this area.

[Nancy]

It's important to understand that Albin grossly overbuilt their electrical handling systems, and, as a result, had to resort to some unconventional switching methods.

For example, in our boat, there were two main battery banks when it left the factory (a third was added later, but that is beside the point). Rather than the typical 1-ALL-2-OFF switch, feeding two batteries into a single load that serves both the engine and house, they used two such switches, side by side. This allows the Engine and House batteries, to service the Engine and House loads independently with no connection between the two. But it ALSO allows you to interconnect the two so that you can charge the house battery bank from the engine. The connectors for "2" on the switches just have a wire running between them (from one switch to the other). That way, by selecting "ALL" on both switches, you are combining both banks and both loads into one big system. But they didn't label ANY of this, nor did they provide a user's manual. So, unless you're the original owner who went through a detailed orientation with the dealer on how it works, or you've spent some serious time crawling around and tracing wires, you'd never understand any of it.

Since our boat has several different users, only some of which are interested in crawling around in the bilge, I started looking at alternatives to make it simpler to use. There are some charging relays that could be employed, but due to the over-building of the electrical system, the versions necessary to match the capacity of the rest of the system are extremely expensive (4 digits). Instead, I opted to do some custom labeling for the switches, and create a couple laminated instruction sheets that are attached to the switch panel, making it fairly simple to know how the switches are supposed to be set in any given situation. Now, remembering to make those switch changes as your situation changes....well that is another challenge.

I'm resurrecting an ancient thread as I think this post has the clues I'm looking for.

We have three batteries on our 35CB. There are two 8D's under the dinette seat. The shelf they sit on is marked Engine below one of them and House below the other. The third battery is a Group 27 or 31 for the generator and is located near the generator beneath the cockpit sole. None of these batteries are wired in parallel.

Here are the battery switches:

battery switches-04.05.22-768.jpg

They are just as Mariner describes: 1, 2, Both, Off. How did Albin intend these switches to be used? I understand Off, I think...except I don't know if the battery charger charges the batteries with the switch turned to Off. Some boats do; some don't.

I'm guessing that position 1 draws only from the associated battery.

Position 2 is beyond me. No clue.

Does Both parallel everything through the switch? What if you turn Engine to Both and House to 1? What happens then? What if you turn all three to Both? My probability skills are rusty, so I don't remember how many possible combinations there might be for these three switches and three positions. Even if it's only nine, that's mind-boggling.

How does 1, 2, Both make any sense when there are three batteries?? Seems like you'd need 1, 2, 3, *All* because "Both" isn't grammatically correct for anything other than a quantity of two.

You see my dilemma. Obviously we need to test a million combinations because even though the system may have been configured with some kind of logic from the factory, there's no guarantee that someone hasn't changed it. But it would be nice to understand what the original concept was.

[rhutch98]

I believe that I have it down for my 31TE (Twin Engine) which has 3 main batteries (House, STBD Starter & Port Starter) and I believe this is how it works on my boat.

Battery 1 (House)
Battery Selector Positions
Batt 1 (House battery only)
Batt 2 (Port engine battery only)
Batt 1 & 2 (House & Port engine batteries)

I keep the house battery switch isolated, so it always stays in position 1

Battery 2 (STBD Engine)
Battery Selector Positions
Batt 1 (STBD engine battery only)
Batt 2 (House battery only)
Batt 1 & 2 (STBD engine & house batteries)

Battery 3 (Port Engine)
Battery Selector Positions
Batt 1 (Port engine battery only)
Batt 2 (house battery only)
Batt 1 & 2 (Port engine & house batteries)

My general operating procedure is to start the boat with all three switched set to the 1 Position. Once the engines warms up I either pick the starboard or port engine switch and change one of them to 1 & 2 to keep the house battery charged.


Cheers,

Rob