Does a Battery Combiner Draw Current When No Charge Is Present?
Transcript is auto-generated.
hi everyone we've got a question from a fellow voter named mark mark asks jeff my boat is on a mooring boy for the season and it's possible that it might sit for say two weeks okay that's the setup all right let's go with some questions does the battery combiner draw current for the operation when no charge is present furthermore would the battery combiner be drawing from either battery during that time and also does it matter which terminal on the acr gets connected to the engine battery with an alternator and house battery okay lots of questions i'll try to answer them uh as good as i can first question is yes a battery combiner even when the batteries are not in parallel is effectively sensing voltage and that's sensing of the voltage on either post of your battery combiner does draw power yes so it would be possible to disconnect or disable that battery combiner by removing the negative connection and generally that negative connection is fused so that your battery combiner is completely disabled uh when you're at a mooring ball now mind you the it's milliamps i don't think it's measured in amps it's very small drop but small draws do add up considering it's hours a day seven days a week especially on a mooring ball where you have no ability to recharge your batteries from shore power with the acr draw batteries from either battery bank because an acr is connected to two um i don't know to be honest um i think at that point it's probably choosing one of the two that would allow the battery combiner to work because as we know battery combiners um really are in most cases not all cases but most of them are bi-directional and so i would think that the battery combiner is going to be looking at battery voltage from both because even if one battery is not dead but pretty empty the battery combiner still works so based on evidence of behavior i would say that it's sensing from or taking power from either is what i would guess also does it matter which terminal the acr gets connected to well if it's a bi-directional combiner the answer is no right meaning if current can go from engine battery to a house and from house to engine then it doesn't matter but there are some battery combiners out there that are directional what does that mean it means that the current can only go from let's say engine or to house but not from house to engine in that case if you have a directional battery combiner and blue seas makes them and echo for example xantrex echo charger is another one that's directional then yes absolutely which battery connects to which is definitely going to matter because the flow of the current can only happen in one way and so that's basically a little recap on battery combiners thanks mark for asking and thanks all of you for tuning in i appreciate it
