Battery ACR or Switch

[vw4life]

What is the benefit to using a ACR like the Blue Seas or Yandima over a simple switch? Other than forgetting to turn the switch to 1, 2 or both. I see that Blue Seas sells a kit including the ACR and switch?

Will a solar set up back feed through the ACR to the main battery? I see the yandima has a switch to combine both but not quite sure if the current will flow to the main instead of the house battery.

[dobryan]

The yandina combines batteries when a charging voltage is sensed on either battery.
_________________
Dave O
'87 Westy w/ 2002 Subaru EJ25 and Peloquin TBD

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[vw4life]

I did some additional reading and will use the ACR. The switch is nice but I will forget to turn it, that is the benefit of the ACR. Takes my forgetfulness out of the equation.

Thanks

[buildyourown]

Consider the voltage drop of the small 10ga wire that the Yandina locks you into. This was too small for my system and was a contributor to killing my battery.
The Bluesea ACR lets you use whatever size you need.

[nocreditnodebt]

When my house battery is low, and needs all the current it can get, I do not want some dual sense combiner sending some portion of the solar wattage to bring the engine battery upto absorption voltage.

Even if the engine battery is absolutely fully charged and healthy, it will require about 0.7 amps to be held at 14.5v. Id rather that current go into depleted house battery instead.

http://www.allbatterysalesandservice.com/browse.cfm/4,2705.html

I use a manual switch, but if I wanted automatic, I'd use a simple Continuous duty solenoid, and fat copper.

[jismay]

I've been very happy with my Yandina.

I have a hardwired battery charger connected directly to the house bank as well as 140 watts of solar. In normal circumstances the starter battery is full once I park the van and any charging current from the solar panels is going basically 100% into the house bank.

I have a manual override switch installed so that I can either force-combine or force-isolate the two batteries.

I am not overly concerned with the 10gauge link to the Yandina as the link from the solar to the battery is also only 10gauge.
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1970 Squareback with 1915cc dual 40idf
1979 Beetle Convertible
1980 Vanagon Westfalia
1989 VW Cabriolet

[dobryan]