Jeanneau 2010 57, 24 volt charging

[karlsailing]

1) The user manual  is very confusing as it shows and states contradicting info on 24V charging. It shows 2 24V battery chargers under nav station but this boat only has one. Then it seems Jeanneau sells the second one as an option which explains why this boat only has one.

However, the electrical panel has two breakers that are labeled 24V charging. So if this boat only has one charger, I assume one of these breakers is not connected to anything? Unless a previous owner used it for something else? 

2) There are two 24V battery banks, one under the galley and one near starboard side near nav station. I believe that second bank under gally is an upgrade. I assume these two battery banks are just directly connected together and not isolated? So the one charger is charging all 8 batteries?

3) It seems the second alternator is the 24V alternator which is for charging this 24V battery bank when engine is on. Is the alternator output directly connected thru the blue box diode isolater and then directly into the battery banks and not going thru some other charger?  Trying to debug why the 24V batteries arent charged with the engine on and only when generator is on. Its either alternator is broken, the relays are broken, or the diode isolator is broken. 

And is anyone familiar with the relay, the part number of the 24V alternator, and whether it requires voltage on B+ to excite the alternator to tun on? 

Here's how the relay is connected up. Its strange also as there's two identical relays however one relay output is not connected to anything. So maybe the unused relay was meant for the 12V alternator and for whatever reason isnt needed. But the issue we have is with the 24V alternator not providing current.

See relay diagram here.

relay.HEIC (946.34 KB)

[loredo]

Karlsailing,

I'm in the process to "refit" the 2015 J57 I got myself last year.  Let me start with saying that the electrocal engineer who has designed the system must have had a nightmare or is a complete idiot... With that said:

I don't know how similar (or different) the electric systems 2010-2015 are.  I think rather close with the main difference that my 2015 has also a sternthruster which wasn't an option in 2010.

I can confirm that the second 24V battery charger & second 24V battery bank were an option. Thus, your second battery bank without the second charger is an upgrade for sure.  You should find an unused power cable under the chart table which was meant for the second 24V battery charger.

In my boat, the bank under the kitchen sink is joined with the main bank directly at the 24V panel main (rotating) switch.

Means, both + cables from both banks go directly there. Thus they're either both "On" or both "Off".   

The second alternator (white, in front of the engine) is the 24V one.  It's a Mastervolt 24V - 90A with external regulator.

(The external regulator is still present in your boat?)

He's fed to the battery isolator under the chart table and charges both house banks and the bow thruster battery bank, plus in my boat also the stern thruster bank.  You should have a diode isolator with 1 input and  2 outputs. Mine is 1 in - 3 out bacause of the stern thruster.  On my boat there are no relays involved but the external regulator, sorry can't help you there.

Should you be confused (like I was) how the amp meter works on the main panel let me know.

It's an interesting piece of idiot design...

Loredo

[nieamm]

Lorado
Please elaborate on the amp meters, as I am still baffled by the numbers on them, also fluctuating wildly.
I by the way have 2 60amp Victron 24v chargers installed.

[Zanshin]

The standard J57 24V battery bank is under the galley. There is an optional 2nd bank (which I got) under the floorboards between the navigation station and aft cabin and this is connected to the other bank.

I had 2 Cristec chargers for the 24V which both died and I replaced it with a large Victron charging unit in addition to a big Victron inverter/charger that I also added.

There are 2 alternators, one for 12V and another for 24V and they should charge the starter battery, 12V house bank, and 24V house bank when the engine is running. I think my isolators are in a compartment between the engine bay and the aft cabin, only accessible by removing part of a closet back wall.

Have you put a multimeter on the alternator(s) output when the engine is running to see what they are putting out?

[loredo]

nieamm,

I first need to say that my 2015 "J57" is in reality the very first J58 (according to the broker who sold the boat to the first owner).

In fact, while the boat is labeled as 57 in reality it is a J58.  That is reflected in the different interior woodwork / colors, sternthruster

which wasn't an option on the J57 and so on. 

This could mean that my boat is a sort of "prototype" work. With this I mean to say that my boat might differ in some aspects from the other boats build earlier or even later.  I sure hope that the overall (poor) assembly quality is due to being a prototype not a regular production... Please don't get me wrong, almost all stuff is top notch quality, how the boat has then been assembeld is a whole different story though.  Oh well, I'm fixing it (almost done after a year).

Back to the Amp meter.  Basically, the Amp meter is thought to show the CHARGING of the batteries, not so much the consumption which per se is already beyond my comprehension.

So, my boat has FOUR 24V shunts under the chart table while there are THREE 24V battery banks. The house bank, the bow thruster, the stern thruster.  What is the fourth shunt then for?

Long story short, if you look at the amp meter knob on the electrical panel, there are different positions for the different battery banks.  In particular there are two positions on the rotary knob, one signed "+" one signed "-".  Position "+" shows the charging of the house bank, position "-" shows the power consumption from the house bank. HUH???  YES, they installed a dedicated (fourth) shunt to show how much power goes into the house bank. WHAT FOR? Every Amp meter shows a "-" before the number if power is consumed and no sign if power goes into the battery. 

WAIT the story is not over yet.  The shunt that's connected to the "-" position does NOT show all the users connected to the house battery bank!  There is the secondary power distribution panel (located under the step to the aft cabin close the chart table) where

all the "power hungry" users are connected to. Stuff like power winches, windlass, inverter, passarelle... are all connected there.

Unfortunately, the power for this panel comes directly (without going through a shunt) from the main +24V switch.  "As is" we'll never know how much power is really taken out from house bank.  HUH?

Yet, it is important to know how much "passive" power is consumed from the battery.  With "passive" I mean for example the inverter when turned on does consume some power even though we're not using any AC from it.  The passerelle has an electronics brain / remote receiver, it uses power too...  How much power??? As is, no way to know! 

Less important is the fact that the position for the bow thruster (also the stern thruster) the charging source goes to the shunt and from there to the dedicated battery.  We only know if and how much we're charging. 

End of part one.

Next part I'll amuse you explaining how the Amp meter on the panel actually converts the shunt into amp readings.

Wanna laugh? Stay tuned!

 

[loredo]

Part two, how the amp meter works.

Foreword, most Amp meters / shunts work like this: in simple words, the shunt is a calibrated "resistor".

Means, when power runs through it, there is a tiny voltage drop between the in-out terminals because

of the shunt’s resistance. Then more power runs through the shunt, then bigger the voltage difference will be.

Say we measure 10mV voltage drop between the terminals = say 5 Amp. The amp meter does nothing more than to measure the voltage
difference and convert it then into an ampere reading. Simple, reliable, almost bullet proof.

The "Wempe" Amp meter installed on the J57-J58 instead uses a "Smart" shunt.
Means, its shunt converts the voltage difference into a 0V - 4.5V signal which the Amp meter then converts into a 0 to 155 Amp reading.
Where 0 (zero) Volt = 155 Ampere and 4.5V = 0 ampere. Hmmmm...OOooooK...

The complication comes from the fact that Jeanneau installed the normal above-mentioned shunts and feeds those then to "signal amplifiers"
which then convert the tiny voltage difference into the 0 to 4.5V signal the installed Amp meter needs to give the correct reading(s).
The two signal amplifiers are located (on my boat!) below the floor panel under the chart table, to the 12V battery housing structure
towards the hull. Hope this makes sense. (?) Two smallish white plastic boxes with three connectors on them. Two connectors are the shunts,
the connector located in the center instead holds the wires that go up to the amp meter.

Wildly fluctuating readings were caused on my boat by the oxidized contacts in the rotary switch.
I fixed it with dry contact cleaner. Spray the switch, turn the rotary knob as fast as possible back and forth, spray again turn knob...
Repeat this several times, at some point the fluctuating thing will be gone.
(BTW, rotary switch for the voltages needs to be cleaned too. Mine did always read a dot something too low.)

At that point, first with everything shut off, then disconnected the "out" wires from the shunts, I had NOT zero readings. Means, the amp
meter would show minus/plus a few Amps even though no power was being pulled or fed.
Back to the amplifier boxes, those have two high precision potentiometers, one for each shunt, which allows to calibrate the zero point(s).
First, one needs to figure out which pot adjust which shunt. That alone makes for a lot of fun!
Very tiny screwdriver, laying on my stomach and a lot of time and patience later, voilà a zero reading IS now zero.

Why anyone would design an overcomplex system like this that does not do what’s supposed to do (Read ALL amps reliably) is beyond me.
And I'll leave it at this...

[nieamm]

Lorado

THANKS , now I understand why I don’t understand  .
While my boat is a 2012 version I only have 2 24V banks (Bow Thruster, and the ‘twin’ house banks (NAV, Galley)) hence have only been able to locate 3 shunts 2 for 24V and one for 12V, also my shuts looks decisively analog (old fasioned) can’t find any white boxes, but I maybe missing, something, will start looking again. 
Yes the rotary dials is a pain not only for the V and Amp, but for tank measurements as well, depending on the dial ‘mood’ I can lose 1/4 of my fuel by touching the dial knop, so I have decided to use Wema’s conversion kit to convert to NMEA 2000 and totally by-pass the original setup on the switchboard and see the tank levels on the Wema 4,3” display or my MFD’s.

Thank you again for sharing your knowledge, I now know how to proceed to  mitigate the french design of the power monitoring setup in the J57/58

BR
Niels

[loredo]

Nieamm,

sorry but I refuse to give up on the OEM equipment.  Cleaning the rotary switches DID work.  At least for the moment being they all work now and I'm no longer able to make the fuel disappear simply touching a knob.

Should that rotary switch problem thinghy come back, what I'll do is to change the OEM rotary switches with better quality ones.

These switches can be had with gold plated contacts and those fluctuating readings will then be a thing of the past for sure. 

Cost for each switch might be 10 boat bucks if that.

Instead, I'm thinking about adding a 500A Mastershunt with it's display. Yet, spending roughly 1K boat bucks to get the complete picture about the house bank...Hmmm...not convinced yet, still thinking how to get the OEM stuff to work correctly.

It must be doable somehow...

Do you have the OEM battery charger(s) still?

On mine, the charging profile was left "stock" which meant constantly under-charging all batteries.

Worth to give it a check.

Loredo