Standard Jeanneau Battery Charging System

[Anwen (Deep Joy)]

Hello everyone,

I have a Sun Odyssey 32 which has a dead house battery. For a while now, I've been considering changing my battery system to use a compact starter battery such as the Red Flash 1000, and then using the battery space for 2 house batteries, rather than the current house battery and starter battery which Jeanneau provide.

At the same time, I will probably fit a smart alternator regulator to improve the battery charging from the engine, probably using a Sterling Alternator Regulator.

In order to plan this out properly, I have been trying to find out how the Jeanneau system works. The wiring diagram in the owners manual isn't very helpful, and I can't determine whether there is a split diode or voltage sensitive relay system which charges the starter battery first, and then switches to the house battery. All I know is that I have a little box above the engine with a red LED which comes on when the engine is running!

If anyone has been down this path before and can give me the benefit of their experience, or who can explain the Jeanneau provided system, I'd be very grateful.

Thanks in advance

[rhb]

Does the little box with the red LED have three fat red wires and one smaller black wire attached to it? If so it is most likely a low loss splitter like the one they provide on the 42I.

Does the fat red wire that comes from your alternator go to this box directly or does it go to the starter and from there to the box?

I'm not familiar with the Sterling regulators - do they require direct control of the alternator field? If so and if you have a standard Yanmar/Hitachi alternator then you will need to modify it to accept external regulation.

Do you know how much house bank power you will require between recharge? I've found that on our (admittedly electrically intensive) boat that I've had to add a battery to the 3 existing 100ah batts for a total of 400ah. This is to be able to easily go 24 hours without a recharge without discharging below 50% of battery bank capacity. How much power will you use? How long do you want to operate before starting the engine to recharge?

It isn't the big loads that get you... It's the small loads that are on all the time - like a propane/LPG detector and others.

How much knowledge/experience do you have for this project? I only ask to calibrate the kind of advice that I and others may be able to provide.
Further advice available once these questions are resolved.

[Anwen (Deep Joy)]

Thanks for the reply. I have found a photo I took a while ago of the switch layout etc. If you look centre left above the engine hoses, you can see a black relay mounted on a white socket with a fattish red wire leading to/from it. I think this is some kind of charge relay. To the left of this is the mysterious box of tricks which has the red LED which is illuminated when the engine is running.

I'm reasonably technical and am sure I'll be able to work it out given time, but was hoping that someone had been here before and knew how this worked, in order to save me some hassle. The wiring instructions for the Sterling regulator give diagrams for systems which have a 1-2-both switch or blocking diodes, but not for a relay system of this type.

As you can see from the colour, the engine is a Yanmar 2GM20F, and it has a Hitachi alternator. I know I will have to split the alternator apart to solder leads onto the brushes for the smart regulator installation.

[rhb]

Sounds like you're knowledge equipped to sort things out. At first glance I thought the large box on the right of the photo was an older diode charge splitter but it appears to have only two cables rather than 3. The box you're wondering about would seem to have far too many connections to be a charge splitter. I've had some experience understanding Jeanneau's rather complex wiring diagrams so may be able to assist you if there is a way to post a copy. It may be that a few of your hours with a digital VOM is the best way to gain a good understanding of what they've done. How old is your boat? The pictured system looks quite different than ours (understanding that it's a different boat model and size)

[pio]

If you install a Sterling Alternator to Battery regulator you need to remove the charging relay anyhow. I would recommend to use a Sterling type as per the next link:

www.sterling-power.com/products-altbatt.htm

this type has an internal diodebridge and can be installed without opening the alternator.

I'm at the point to order such this Sterling equipment and hope to install it within a few weeks time by myself.

The equipment on the photo with the red led and the other box on the right side are unknown to me< I do not find them on my SO 32 (which a bought new, so nobody except myself installed other equipment

[Anwen (Deep Joy)]

Thanks rhb and Pio, I really appreciate you taking the time to post and share your experience.

I have done some more researching, and between my owners manual, Yanmar installation booklets and wiring diagrams and threads on the PBO forum, I have found out that the white box with the red LED is part of the Yanmar control circuitry, and ensures that the alternator fires up when the engine is started. I need to spend a bit more time tonight with wiring diagrams and redraw the schematic, but I'm reasonably confident that the Sterling regulator won't need to have anything to do with this. The relay to the right of the white box is the charging relay, but as far as I can determine, it isn't a voltage sensitive relay, and when the alternator is running, there is no preferential charging of the engine start battery.

As I learn more, I will post again. I'm hoping to do the work this weekend, and already have the Sterling regulator.

Pio, I looked at these alternator to battery chargers, but decided not to go with one, primarily because of cost! They are more than twice the price of the smart regulator. Don't forget, I've got to find the money for some new batteries too, so this job is going to cost me more than 300GBP as it is.

[pio]

Yes, the Sterling equipment is not cheap, in Euro's it looks a bit better. I have to warn you however that the simple charging relay from Jeanneau is tricky, because it comes in soon after you started the engine and if you have unloaded your service battery a bit, you get a strong unloading from the loaded start battery towards the servicebattery. this is one of the reasons that batteries are flat too quickly and that is expensive too. It would be better to install a diodebridge with low voltage droppage to separate the start battery and the house battery. if you install more than one house battery they should be equal and have the same age!! . A diode bridge is not very expensive and you might find a used one.

[electricmonk]

The large item on the right with two red cables is a breaker for the windlass

The white box with the LED has the same wiring connection configuration as the rear cabin lights control on my SO43

If this helps?

[Anwen (Deep Joy)]

I thought I would post an update just to let everyone know what I have learnt and how things turned out.

Firstly, I now have a better understanding of the charging system as originally installed. It is a split charge relay, which ensures that the alternator is isolated from the house battery during starting, and once the alternator starts to produce current, closes the relay which connects the house battery into the charging circuit. The box of electronics is a very simple logic circuit which looks for voltage from the alternator which comes from the white wire, and then allows the relay circuit to close. The black box to the right of the electronics is the relay itself. I have posted the picture again so that you don't have to go up to my second post of the thread.



Once I had figured out how the existing circuit works, I could start to think about fitting the Sterling alternator smart regulator. One of the first things which the instructions discuss is using the regulator with a split charge relay system. Essentially there is a strong warning that with the much increased current the new regulator will allow, many relays simply aren't robust enough and will quickly fail. The recommended approach is to use a diode splitter. These are not generally considered a good choice on standard systems due to the voltage drop across them, but are fine when used with a smart regulator, as the voltage is sensed after the diodes at the battery and so the alternator voltage is increased to overcome the drop across the diodes.

The picture below shows the diode splitter and smart regulator fitted in place of the relay.



You can see that I have already wired the diode splitter into the system. The centre wire comes from the positive terminal on the alternator, and the output wires go to the battery positive sides of the main switches. I used 12mm² tinned cable, and crimped on the lugs with a homemade tool. The original cabling fitted by Jeanneau was 10mm², so this should be fine.

The next step was to modify the alternator by soldering a wire onto the brush which feeds the voltage to the rotor coils. I removed the alternator, and split it apart, which took a bit of courage. However, once apart, it was obvious that this new model Hitachi alternator was much more difficult to break down than the older models which had been designed for easy brush replacement. In fact, I could see no way to get at the brushes in order to solder the necessary wire in place.

This was a problem which I needed help from another forum to solve. Someone who had done this job on a Hanse 315 which has the same Yanmar 2GM20F engine and same alternator was able to tell me what needs to be done. You have to break off a plastic shroud which covers the ends of the brushes, enabling the wire to be soldered in place. The photo below shows the shroud arrowed.



Once I had removed the shroud, soldering the wire onto the correct brush (the top one) was easy, and the alternator was reassembled. This could then be fitted back on the engine and wired up to the new Sterling regulator. The new wire is on the right coming out from the heatsink vent.



The final job was to complete the Sterling wiring, which needs a 12V signal from the engine control panel which tells the unit to start operating. This is where the old electronic box with the red LED came into play - the orange wire comes from the engine panel and gives a 12V engine running signal. I simply spliced the yellow wire from the Sterling to this orange wire. And that was it. Starting the engine was a tense moment, but the new smart regulator burst into life with the signal LEDs confirming all was well. Checking with the multimeter confirmed that the batteries were seeing the 14.8V charging voltage which the smart regulator is designed to give.

Here is a picture of the completed installation. I have some cable trunking on order and will fit it around the regulator wires to tidy them up.



Postscript. Having been away on the boat for a week, and running the engine on passage, I found the new regulator gets very hot in the engine compartment. Next weekend, I will be relocating it to the other side of the bulkhead which will put it in the aft cabin next to the main battery switches.

[MalcolmP]

This is really helpful - I will endevour to sumarise a version for the Hints and Tips section on the main website within the next few weeks

Have you any more detail on soldering the extra wire on? I guess that may be the step that many owners would be the most nervous about

Thanks for all your effort in reporting this