isolator vs. ACR

[Kevin]

Is one better than the other. I know the isolator inhibits the charging slightly and generates some heat. I have one of those three bank isolators but never installed it. I am getting to the wiring aspect of cabin rebuild. I have a new AC DC panel and got rid of all the old wires. Battery charger is ready for relocation in the cabin near the panel. It is only a two bank charger though. Going to use a third house battery. I have been told the isolators are a waste and cuase to much wiring and too many connections. That opinion was from one of my old school boat buddies. He is very knowledgable but almost over simplifies things sometimes. Any thoughts?

[Skipper Dick]

Kevin,

Last year, I isolated all four of my batteries with a three bank output, two alternator input isolator. Two batteries make up the house bank. I had gone through and pulled a couple of miles of wire out of the boat that was just left in place when the former owner repowered. This made it simple enough to trace all the wiring and get the three banks isolated. I use a 3 bank trucharge and one of the main things I was cautioned not to do by them was to run the charger through the isolator. So the charger is located on the outboard hull on the starboard side just above the batteries, so I could easily run charging wires to each bank separately. I like the setup and feel confident that the system is doing it's job. The trucharge is completely safe from water or moisture.

Dick

[Kevin]

I have similar setup also. My charger is a promariner and I have a two alternator, three battery isolator. There is no longer any AC wiring in the boat. I boaught a blue seas 8408 AC DC panel. Going to install everything in the cabin near the hole in the bulkhead on the starboard side. Wire routing/accesability is pretty good since there is nothing in the empty cabin area....starting from scratch. Do not have schematic drawn out yet. The harness on the engines one big cable. Supply power to the starter and it charges from there, I do not have a seperate charge line from the alternator to the battery(what I am familiar with). This may be a trial and error procedure for me getting it all right i.e not running charger through isolator and so forth. Slighty intimidated at this point but hopefully I will get through it. Nice part is that the boat is still usable even with out all the AC DC wireing, just do not have nav lights so day use only. Impellar arrived today so time to mess with the boat.

[Rawleigh]

Kevin: Check out the new Blue Seas switch/isolator combo that was intoduced at the Miami Show. It has the added benefit of having a combined position so you don't need a seperate solenoid to hook all the batteries together if you starting bank goes dead. They call it ACR.

http://bluesea.com/category/1/productline/overview/329

Here is the catalog.

http://bluesea.com/files/resources/cata ... df#page=10

You would use two of them for your application. I think I'm going to change to them this year.