ACR Starter Lockout
- Thread starter Ray
- Start date
Ray,
What to you want to accomplish?
With a combiner when the batteries are at rest, the house (which the electronics should be attatched to) and the engine start are not connected thru the combiner. When the engine start battery gets up to about 13.7 volts, then the batteries combine. When you are starting the engine, the batteries area isolated.
What to you want to accomplish?
With a combiner when the batteries are at rest, the house (which the electronics should be attatched to) and the engine start are not connected thru the combiner. When the engine start battery gets up to about 13.7 volts, then the batteries combine. When you are starting the engine, the batteries area isolated.
It appears to a feature built into the Blue Sea ACR.
The description is not entirely clear, or black and white, but it appears that having this "starting" input separately fed to the ACR unit, temporarily isolates any possible combining during engine starting so that the loads connected to the house battery (electronics, etc.) don't experience the large swings, noise and other nasty stuff that the starting process places on the electrical system.
There is a separate input terminal on the device to feed this signal into.
That's why I also asked if it was worth the trouble worrying about.
Thanks again!
The description is not entirely clear, or black and white, but it appears that having this "starting" input separately fed to the ACR unit, temporarily isolates any possible combining during engine starting so that the loads connected to the house battery (electronics, etc.) don't experience the large swings, noise and other nasty stuff that the starting process places on the electrical system.
There is a separate input terminal on the device to feed this signal into.
That's why I also asked if it was worth the trouble worrying about.
Thanks again!
Reading this got me curious, so I looked up the Blue Sea document. If I'm understanding this correctly, the house loads (including electronics) are not isolated during cranking unless one does this optional, additional wiring step. On the face of it, this sounds like something worthwhile, or..... is it not necessary in the real world of our boats and their systems? (I have this ACR in my boat, but I don't believe the isolation feature is wired.)
It looks like the key phrase is what I outlined in red, i.e. the ACR allows isolation, but that it doesn't happen unless you do the extra/special wiring described in the second excerpt (If I have that right?)
Link to the whole document on the Blue Sea ACR 7610:
http://assets.bluesea.com/files/resourc ... 170140.pdf
It looks like the key phrase is what I outlined in red, i.e. the ACR allows isolation, but that it doesn't happen unless you do the extra/special wiring described in the second excerpt (If I have that right?)
Link to the whole document on the Blue Sea ACR 7610:
http://assets.bluesea.com/files/resourc ... 170140.pdf
That's exactly what I was referring to, Sunbeam.
My electronics engineering background says that not much "bad stuff" is going to get through an electrical circuit that has a 50lb battery (essentially a mambo capacitor) sitting right there at the power supply-end of it. The only thing I can surmise is a possible droop in the overall voltage, and while severe cases (a very low house bank or something) would cause electronics to go through a reset, it is likely not destructive to them.
I just wanted to know if others had seen or not seen issues related to it.
It would seem that there must have been problems with some equipment at some point in the past for Blue Sea to have to have included such a feature.
Thanks.
My electronics engineering background says that not much "bad stuff" is going to get through an electrical circuit that has a 50lb battery (essentially a mambo capacitor) sitting right there at the power supply-end of it. The only thing I can surmise is a possible droop in the overall voltage, and while severe cases (a very low house bank or something) would cause electronics to go through a reset, it is likely not destructive to them.
I just wanted to know if others had seen or not seen issues related to it.
It would seem that there must have been problems with some equipment at some point in the past for Blue Sea to have to have included such a feature.
Thanks.
potter water
New member
Ditto what Ray said. Modern starters on outboards have pretty low current requirements and simply don't create the same electrical havoc that starters in pre 1990 cars did. Most of our "sensitive electronics" are pretty well designed to deal with noisy buss voltages. I've been starting motors with electronics ON for many years with no side effects. HOWEVER, I do make it a practice to turn off all electronics manually after I'm through for the night. Then I almost always start engines before powering electronics back up. But I never sweat it if I forget. It would be a pretty lousy electronics company that would allow a design to pass to production that couldn't stand major power bumps, dips and crackles.
Not entirely true--there are a number of recorded instances of electroncis dropping off when large outboards are started even recently. Occasionally there are failures to electronics. What is the cause? We can never be sure, but best to make sure it does not happen. Yes, my experience with damage to electronics I can definately trace to low voltage and spikes, is pre 1990. However that is since 1972, I have wired my electronics to a house bank separated from the start batteries. The engine which caused failure in my case of some very expensive (for the time) wind instruments, was a 22 hp Albin diesel. This was an engine easily started by hand. I don't know the starter current--but probably not much more than a modern 100 hp outboard--if that much. A lot depends on battery condition, the wiring gauge, and how the boat is wired.
I wire the boat so that the electronics are wired to the house battery. Thus they are isolated when the starter is engaged. Under what conditions is the combiner activated when you start the outboard? Answer, if you have the battery charger on when you start the engine. I turn off all 110 volt circuits prior to starting engines.....
So, if you plan on leaving the battery charger on when you start the engine, then it would be of value.
I wire the boat so that the electronics are wired to the house battery. Thus they are isolated when the starter is engaged. Under what conditions is the combiner activated when you start the outboard? Answer, if you have the battery charger on when you start the engine. I turn off all 110 volt circuits prior to starting engines.....
So, if you plan on leaving the battery charger on when you start the engine, then it would be of value.
The combiner stays on several minutes after the engine is turned off from what I've seen. This means if I were to stop and look at something (and listen) and shut the motor down, then started up again, they'd be connected. Also, I'm not really sure if this is an issue, but it seems like during cranking, the alternator might be making some voltage fluctuations that could cause the combiner to activate. I'd guess Blue Sea added it for a practical reason, though I'll admit mine doesn't have the lockout wired up.
Good point, and I had been wondering how long after the charger is disconnected that the voltage decay continues. We rarely stop the boat to look at something...so for us that does not apply. (An exception was anchoring at Forbidden Canyon last Sept on Powell, when I reset the anchor several times to get the correct angle to the beach with the wind blowing.)
I have a Group 24 MCA 685 and Res Cap of 85 (typical of a C Dory 22 battery). It was on a poorly regulated older charger and the voltage was 14.5 (slightly higher than an outboard alternator voltage) when I pulled the charger off. In 5 minutes the battery was down to 12.8, and 6 minutes down to 12.7 volts. This is one of two batteries used on the trolling motor on the Caracal Cat. It is lightly used and charged regularly. There was zero load on the battery--with even a light load the voltage decay would have been faster...
I suspect that the starter lock out, is going to be used mostly on boats where the charger is left on, or the combiner is locked on.
I have a Group 24 MCA 685 and Res Cap of 85 (typical of a C Dory 22 battery). It was on a poorly regulated older charger and the voltage was 14.5 (slightly higher than an outboard alternator voltage) when I pulled the charger off. In 5 minutes the battery was down to 12.8, and 6 minutes down to 12.7 volts. This is one of two batteries used on the trolling motor on the Caracal Cat. It is lightly used and charged regularly. There was zero load on the battery--with even a light load the voltage decay would have been faster...
I suspect that the starter lock out, is going to be used mostly on boats where the charger is left on, or the combiner is locked on.