Electric winch causing voltage drop on AIS

[Huzie]

Hi

Interested to know how those of you with Electric Winches have dealt with battery connections. We have a Jeanneau 42.2 with a two speed harken winch fitted on the cabin top. It uses the 3 x Lead acid house batteries to power it. (Varta LFS105/VAR)

Our issue is that when using the winch the voltage drops in the system and the AIS 12v alarm keeps triggering.

The batteries were replaced 18months ago and we had the same issue when they were new.

Using a multimeter you can see voltage of around 11.8v when the winch is running.
I was thinking about running cables from the separate bow thruster battery (in the forepeak) to run the winch but its about a 5m cable run.

Thoughts - any experience of similar?

[mako]

How about installing a voltage regulator on the feed to all your bridge electronics. They would all benefit from smooth power supply.

[Huzie]

That’s interesting

I haven’t seen an issue with other electronics but I am sure they would benefit

I haven’t experience with a voltage regulator though

[CaptainRivet]

How long is the cable, what is the voltage drop in your cable??
What is the actual draw in amps of the electric whinch?
Is it dirty (inside so high resistance), connections tightened down with correct NM, connections or cable oxidized or corroded??

Well you have 315AH lead, they will do 30A well and 50 with some voltage drop (+cable loss). How much load do you have an the battery in average without winches, assume 15A with fridge and autopilot+chartplotters running. Electric whinshes and 300AH lead is a bit tight in my eyes…you would be a good example to go to lithium, 300AH in and all is sorted.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Huzie

That’s interesting

I haven’t seen an issue with other electronics but I am sure they would benefit

I haven’t experience with a voltage regulator though

I have posted a reference diagram for this. Being a reference diagram, it has more than you need, in your case, just delete the whole 24V side and converter so that you just have the 12-12V converter. I do recommend the extra AGM battery, you can buy a really small one, like 8Ah etc. on Amazon.

https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...cs-270317.html

[team karst]

It is not possible to kill the AIS alarm with a different preset?
11.8V as a set point, along with a short integration time for the measurement shouts loudly of poor firmware in the AIS. Its a shame to have to put in expensive workarounds to solve a programming use case defect.

[CaptainRivet]

Originally Posted by team karst

It is not possible to kill the AIS alarm with a different preset?
11.8V as a set point, along with a short integration time for the measurement shouts loudly of poor firmware in the AIS. Its a shame to have to put in expensive workarounds to solve a programming use case defect.

well you should first figure out the root cause why the voltage sags to 11,8V with new batteries. if all is technically OK I would invest in a bigger bank instead converter. Still a good for the board electric though, do both would be my advice

[CaptainRivet]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

I have posted a reference diagram for this. Being a reference diagram, it has more than you need, in your case, just delete the whole 24V side and converter so that you just have the 12-12V converter. I do recommend the extra AGM battery, you can buy a really small one, like 8Ah etc. on Amazon.

https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...cs-270317.html

no AGM on a boat,even not 8AH directly at the heart of your electrics. a gel or a LFP or a LTO yes.
Now I know what the dead small motorbike battery at the nav station I lately found very hidden should do....

[JBP]

Originally Posted by Huzie

Hi
Using a multimeter you can see voltage of around 11.8v when the winch is running.

Did you measure the 11.8v at the battery? Not at the panel or the winch, but at the battery. If the voltage at the battery is dropping, then the only solution is different batteries or a dedicated battery as people have said above. If the voltage at the battery does not drop, then it is a wiring/ bad connection problem.

[Huzie]

Originally Posted by CaptainRivet

How long is the cable, what is the voltage drop in your cable??
What is the actual draw in amps of the electric whinch?
Is it dirty (inside so high resistance), connections tightened down with correct NM, connections or cable oxidized or corroded??

Well you have 315AH lead, they will do 30A well and 50 with some voltage drop (+cable loss). How much load do you have an the battery in average without winches, assume 15A with fridge and autopilot+chartplotters running. Electric whinshes and 300AH lead is a bit tight in my eyes…you would be a good example to go to lithium, 300AH in and all is sorted.

The cable is around 3m long.. i actually swapped it out using a 25amp cable just to confirm no voltage drop and had the same issue

I can replicate the issue without any other devices drawing power. When running the winch it pulls around 60amps.

[Huzie]

Originally Posted by team karst

It is not possible to kill the AIS alarm with a different preset?
11.8V as a set point, along with a short integration time for the measurement shouts loudly of poor firmware in the AIS. Its a shame to have to put in expensive workarounds to solve a programming use case defect.

I don't know the actual make of the AIS unit.. its an older one without a splitter. It would be much better to replace but don't want to replace and get the same issue. I will look through the old invoices and see if i can work out the model

[Huzie]

Originally Posted by JBP

Did you measure the 11.8v at the battery? Not at the panel or the winch, but at the battery. If the voltage at the battery is dropping, then the only solution is different batteries or a dedicated battery as people have said above. If the voltage at the battery does not drop, then it is a wiring/ bad connection problem.

I just checked and when running the winch I also get a drop at the battery. Its not as much but a definite drop.

[JBP]

Is 60A appropriate for your winches? 60A over 3m implies #6 cable, is that what is installed?

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by CaptainRivet

no AGM on a boat,even not 8AH directly at the heart of your electrics. a gel or a LFP or a LTO yes.
Now I know what the dead small motorbike battery at the nav station I lately found very hidden should do....

No, I don’t think you realize the reasoning on choice of chemistry; you need tomatch the chemistry to the typical application circumstances. In this case you have a battery that is fully charged, with a charger in float stage, all the time (except during a power outage).

AGM loves this, LFP hates it. Gel, LTO, I can’t say for sure because I have less experience with gel and none with LTO, but I have more than enough experience with AGM to tell you that it will excel in this application. I have personally used this for more than 25 years, incl. a 120kWh system at my own company.

Anyway, you have no further comments on my diagram than complaints on the choice of chemistry?

[svmobert]

On our Jeanneau 45 we had the same issue. 600ah AGM bank and I even upsized the feed from the batteries to the electrical panel. It generally started happening on long passages of sailing when batteries would get down to about 75% SOC or less. We also noticed that the radar would periodically reboot into standby mode. The alarm and radar reboot both coincided with use of the winch, toilet flush, engine restart (we eliminated start battery to have a larger house bank, but generator and bow thruster still had dedicated batteries.)

The solution, without converting to lithium and adding solar, for us was to put the electronics on two Victron Orion isolated dc-dc converters. They would accept pretty much anything above 7V dc and put out steady 13VDC. I moved all the nav, gps, wifi, ais, etc equipment to the converters (except the autopilot since that has a 40A draw of its own) and all of the problems went away. Could actually use the battery bank down to 50% DOD and recharge them and ise winches, toilet, etc without any reboots or alarms.

Originally Posted by Huzie

Hi

Interested to know how those of you with Electric Winches have dealt with battery connections. We have a Jeanneau 42.2 with a two speed harken winch fitted on the cabin top. It uses the 3 x Lead acid house batteries to power it. (Varta LFS105/VAR)

Our issue is that when using the winch the voltage drops in the system and the AIS 12v alarm keeps triggering.

The batteries were replaced 18months ago and we had the same issue when they were new.

Using a multimeter you can see voltage of around 11.8v when the winch is running.
I was thinking about running cables from the separate bow thruster battery (in the forepeak) to run the winch but its about a 5m cable run.

Thoughts - any experience of similar?