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BEP Voltage Sensing Relay advice


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The other boat has three batteries - 1 for the house and 1 for each engine.

 

Starboard start battery has a BEP VSR connecting to the house battery.

 

I didn't install the VSR and I can't tell what model it is, except it's not labeled as one of the newer DVSs and it doesn't say it's dual sensing.

 

Now I've hooked up a solar panel via a regulator to the house battery. Just checked the house batt and it's at 13.7 v. The solar regulator indicates its giving float charge. The VSR light is on indicaing it's operating, and the start battery is also showing 13.7 v. The other start battery is down at 12.7 because it has no charging source without engine running.

 

Can I assume the VSR is a dual sensing model?

 

This would be a bonus, which leads me to think all I now need is to replace the solar regulator with a dual output one to feed the other engine battery.

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Can I assume the VSR is a dual sensing model?

Never assume anything :wink:

Unless it has the terminals for DVS, then I doubt it. I would also imagine the Model No would tell you what it was.

I would most certainly look at dual charge output. You don't need to buy a new Reg for that. The cheaper option would be a charge splitter. You cna even get three output units. However, how does the engine charge the three banks now? Is there a splitter alreay installed?

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Oh right I see. A tripple output splitter would certainly be the way to go. Make sure you get the FET controlled unit, which has no voltage drop like the older cheaper Diode type units. Solar power is too precious to have it wasted.

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Do the FET splitters allow for voltage sensing on the individual banks? Recently had a grand and a half worth of batteries destroyed by a high end (Mastervolt) 3 output charger shoving bulk charge into all three banks because it was only sensing the voltage of the bank with a crook cell.

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If the VSR doesn't say dual sense, it's not dual sense. If the VSR was on with only the solar charging, either the VSR is sensing the house bank (possibly the alternator is connected to it also and not the start bank?), or the VSR didn't turn off since the engine last ran, the voltage has to get down to 12.8 for the VSR to turn off. I would just use two DVSR's (new digital model, dual sense). Anything can charge anything, gives redundancy if you have an issue, also means solar will keep both start banks up.

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Do the FET splitters allow for voltage sensing on the individual banks? Recently had a grand and a half worth of batteries destroyed by a high end (Mastervolt) 3 output charger shoving bulk charge into all three banks because it was only sensing the voltage of the bank with a crook cell.

Really? That is unbelievable. I thought Mastervolt were a seriously good charger.

A splitter doesn't "sense" anything. It isolates so as no one Battery Bank "see's" another Battery Bank. So you can have dissimilar Battery Bank sizes and each Bank will get what is required to charge that Bank without it or another having any influence on the charge current or the other. Ummm, did that make sense?

The only time a Battery will get charged incorrectly is if that Battery has a crook cell, just as you have found. There is no saving of that battery. But unfortunately others connected in the bank along with it will also get that same charge current and most likely be destroyed. Other separate Banks will be isolated.

The other thing is the remote Temperature Sensor I would have thought should have dropped the charge current if an abnormally high temp was sensed.

Someone seriously needs to make a sensing device that will monitor batteries in a bank and disconnect them should one battery behave differently to the others. I would think along the lines of a sensor that would detect lower voltage than all others or taking more charge current than the others. I am sure something should be able to be designed in this day and age.

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So it sounds like get a vsr that ISN'T dual sensing, get a MPPT solar controller (maximizes solar), and put in a three way splitter.

If you don't have MPPT, get one of those with multi outputs.

Personally I don't like VSR's because one battery will never ever get a full charge, because the VSR drops it out at 12.8V or whatever it is set to drop at.

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Really? That is unbelievable. I thought Mastervolt were a seriously good charger.

I think they are a good brand but I don't understand how they can have 3 charge outputs and be sensing voltage from those three outputs to determine best charge for each bank when all the charger displays is one output status. In this instance I was lucky as I had not supplied the charger or batteries. The charger supplier (Energy 4 All/Vila Marine) were great, the battery supplier somewhat less than great.

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Yes I agree. Most mulitple output chargers (that I know of) have one main high current channel and one or two lower current output. e.g, 50A+15A+15A for say. I have always assumed they have two or three separate charge units inside the box. I really can not see how you could ever safely charge a secondary Bank if sensing only the primary Bank and then charging solely to that Banks requirement. Because most normal installations will be a Large House bank and smaller Start banks.

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Further to that, if you remember Shazzam the Charter Boat from out of Havelock, had a Multistep charge controller on the Alternator. The Boat nearly caught Fire due to a design issue with these chargers. If they fault, they seem to fault to High charge output with the Voltage so high, it fries everything. They had to replace all the electronics and battery banks and found several areas where electronics mounted against Bulkheads had fried and burned the Bulkheads. Mark, the Marine Sparky in Havelock, refuses to install them anymore.

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Wheels, I feel that is a bit misleading. A single incidence of failure means nothing. If this example was well designed and installed, and there was a battery monitor on this vessel, the "over voltage" alarms would have gone.

 

Anyway do you mean Multi output or multi stage? Multi output can charge multiple banks at the same time. A good one should have a sense wire for every output. Multi stage is very common, like Bulk, Absorbtion and float stages.

 

A good multi stage regulator, with sense wires, including temp for each battery bank you wish to charge is the best possible solution. These are in use, from many manufacturers, in thousands of vessels worldwide, over many years, and by far the largest percentage are problem free.

 

Personally I use an Ample Power Next Step regulator, which is a 3 stage, temp compensated smart regulator for my alternator. Never had an issue. The Temp sensor is a small cylinder attached to the batt terminal. There are a LOT of these out there....

 

Multi Output chargers that sense only the primary bank are quite common - but less than ideal, as they only know what's happening on the bank they sense. A failure on that primary bank can cause overheating of the others, as the charger tries to compensate for the main bank failure. Read the manual for what you have, or read the specs carefully before you buy. Verify what the seller tells you with specs from the manufacturer!

 

BEP VSR's - Wheels you said above that you think that a bank connected by VSR never charges the battery properly? I fail to see why - I use one to charge my 3rd batt bank (radio batts). It cuts in when the voltage goes over 13.8v, and cuts out again when it drops to 12.8v, so it's on when charging, through all three modes, including the float mode. The only issue I can see with this, is again it is charged by a charger ( either the Alt or the Shorepower Charger) that does not have a sensor for that battery, which, as I have said, is not ideal. Would you like to explain why this may not charge the batt fully?

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Personally I use an Ample Power Next Step regulator, which is a 3 stage,
That's the one. The name escaped me. It is a fault that has happened to others. The design does not have a an over voltage safety feature outside of the Charge sense controller. So if that part fails with this one particular type of fault, it fails in a mode the causes the ALT to output High Voltage.
BEP VSR's - Wheels you said above that you think that a bank connected by VSR never charges the battery properly? I fail to see why - I use one to charge my 3rd batt bank (radio batts). It cuts in when the voltage goes over 13.8v, and cuts out again when it drops to 12.8v,

Good question. Firstly, Gel requires slightly different charging characteristics from that of AGM and FLA. That is because too hard a charge will result in gas bubbles forming in the Gel.

There are three steps to a proper charge and some chargers can give you a fourth for Equalisation charge. Watch for chargers that proclaim 5 and even 7 step charging. It's all marketing and mostly bollocks and I tend to think if they need to promote their charger by playing on the terms, they probably don't have a good charger. While I am in that area, also watch out for another common catch, using Milli Amps instead of Amps to promote the size. Like a whopping 1600mA charger. For the unknowing, that is just 1.6A and a waste of time for Marine applications. Back to the story. Good Quality Chargers are Constant Current Chargers and the Voltage is varied. The Charge Voltages do seem to vary slightly form manufacturer to manufacturer, with each usually saying they have the better charge scenario. But basically Bulk charging is 13.8V, Absorption charge is 14.1 to 14.4V and float is usually 13.2V. And just while we are on that subject, Equalization charging can be as high as 17V. So to answer IT's question, the reason I don't like the VSR's is because they turn off when the Bank reaches the threshold of 13.8V and that Bank never gets to see an absorption charge and because the thing does not switch back on till down at 12.8V, the Bank never gets to enjoy a Float charge. Now for many Engine start Banks, that is not always an issue, because the Battery is usually much smaller and not so expensive to replace and so life expectancy is not an issue, especially if you get 5 or more years from it. But for larger engines, that changes things slightly. For instance, My engine has 1800CCA of Start Bank.

Hope that helps.

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Sorry wheels, you appear to be mistaken. The BEP VSR I have turns ON at 13.8v, not off. It turns off again when the voltage drops to 12.8....

 

Also, the Next step regulator There are two versions (at least), the first one The Next Step, then the Next Step NS2- the only instance I can find online mentioning a fire, is in ample power's manual;

 

_______________________________________

Wiring Diagram

The wiring diagram above is the only way to wire the NS2 Regulator. Do not wire in any other way, such as combining ground wires or battery positive wires. Use fuses where shown. Failure to do so may result in fire.

_______________________________________

So, I'd be asking if the unit concerned was actually installed properly.

Also, as I mentioned before, if this happened on Island Time, a reg failure causing over-voltage would cause the Batt Monitor alarm to sound, as it would be outside the allowable parameters..

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Arr I see, I have miss understood which battery you are connecting disconnecting. So in your case, the VSR is disconnecting the Start battery from the House, which are connected via VSR so as ALT charges House via start route, but disconnects Start from House when engine stops and Start Batt drops below 12.8. Is that correct?

 

Re the Next step, I didn't know there was a new model. I need to get up with the program. It's been a few years since the electrical game now.

 

Oh and something else I have not come across is over voltage Alarm. Oh boy, I am feeling the technology world has wizzed past me. I think I am going to go back to my shed now and play with metal. At least that has stayed much the same. :oops:

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IT is right. Sorry wheels but you have misunderstood the operation of a VSR. When either bank gets to 13.8v (13.4 for the new DVSR) the vsr turns on. It stays on as long as the voltage stays above 12.8 (any charging stage will be above this) Once the charge stops, and the voltage falls to 12.8v, the VSR turns off again. The new DVSR also has a overcharge/high voltage cutoff and warning light. So the secondary bank won't also get damaged by the primary bank being overcharged.

The next step 2 is a great reg. It needs to be installed 100% by the book, which is very specific. Yes if the field output jams on, the alternator will go full output. Would happen with any reg , internal or external. As IT said, there are a heap of them out there, one failure does not mean they are all bad. Between the people on this site, we could condemn every product from every brand, and likely every boat from every designer if one failure or issue was the thresh hold for such action.

Ctek chargers are 4 to 8 step (essentially there are 3 charging steps and several others for analysis, recond, desulphation etc. and I think they are great. No made up marketing, just sound research and a good product. Very low failure rate good warranty period and support.

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Yep, Wheels, except slightly more complex! The Alt goes to a diode type splitter, (yes it's old now, and yes the reg has been adjusted to compensate for the slight voltage drop of the diodes) two outputs. One goes to House bank, one goes to Start. The House is connected to the third bank, Radio, via the VSR. So, engine running, both House and Start are charged. When the house bank reaches 13.8V the Radio bank is switched in as well via the VSR. When engine off, the voltage drops to 12.8 and the Radio bank is disconnected by the VSR, and Start and House are isolated by the Diode Splitter.

 

The battery montior watches all three banks voltage, with high and low alarms for all three. However, it only does proper state of charge calcs for the house bank, using perkets (sp?) law. It's a BEP batt monitor.

 

I like the idea of a FET based splitter! You mentioned one the other day, and it stands to reason, but I have not seen one yet. I guess they are MOSFET based? (in english - solid state, no moving parts or switch contacts to wear out)

 

It sure is hard keeping up with the rapid development of the electrical and electronic gear available - you'e sure not the only one struggling!!! :wink:

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Sorry wheels but you have misunderstood the operation of a VSR.
Not misunderstood the operation, but misunderstood the scenario. Which is a standard installation, but as I was also discussing PW's situation, I had a different installation scenario in mind.

CTek are OK, but stating 8 step is misleading. Plus Desulphation is complete snake oil. Once a Battery has sulphated, that's it. You can not reverse Sulphation.

 

IT, this is the Charge splitter I use.

http://www.studer-inno.com/?cat=mosfet_ ... _splitters

The Diode based ones are solid state too, but the problem is the forward conducting voltage drop issue with them. That can be overcome by a small mod placed in the Sense line of the ALT, but it's messy and that can create problems if a charge controller is fitted to the ALT, such as yours and the installer doesn't know of the small mod. With my installation, I have Solar panels, Wind gen, Genset and ALT all running through the Splitter. With the older Diode units, you can't do that because of that Voltage drop mucking things up for some of the charge controller/regulators.

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Personally I don't like VSR's because one battery will never ever get a full charge, because the VSR drops it out at 12.8V or whatever it is set to drop at.

BEP VSRs are now all dual sensing.

For the battery voltage to drop to 12.8 volts, the charging source must have been removed, or an exceptionally heavy load must have reduced the voltage of all batteries being charged, to the cut out voltage. This occurs so as to prevent a discharging battery from discharging the other batteries connected in parallel via the VSR. This is not a disadvantage, it is an essential feature.

 

The only way that I can see a VSR preventing parallel connected batteries from getting adequate charge is if something inhibits the ability for the voltage of one or more batteries to rise. This problem could occur when multiple batteries are charged in parallel regardless of the system used to parallel them, unless the voltage of each battery is sensed and controlled  independently.

 

The worst method of parallel charging batteries is via diode charge splitters without battery voltage sensing, (as many older systems have).

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