adding a battery, for us dummies.

[cjtpilot]

Ok I have a 92 Comp and I want to add a second battery. I have been doing searches all over and maybe its just me and I need to see a schematic or I just can't picture in my head how this gets hooked up. I am going to use the Blue Seas w/ACR. I will have 2 amps that I will hook up to the "house" battery. My main question is currently there is a positive lead and a negative lead that hook up to my battery. How do I separate the house load from the starter? What extra cables will I need to run etc... Any suggestions please dumb this down as much as possible! lol pics or schematics greatly appreciated,

[CJD]

Hook the second battery negative post directly to the negative on the primary battery. If the primary is not located near the new battery, you can ground the new battery to the engine block.

The isolation of the batteries is done using the positive post. Your amps will be connected directly to the new battery positive post...and to any ground in the boat, since all the grounds are all common to all electrics.

You will need some way to connect the positive post of the new battery to the positive post of the old battery when the engine is running. This is how you charge the new battery. But, you must disconnect the positive posts when the engine is not running, so the primary battery will not feed the amps along with the new battery.

Now, the connection of the positive posts can be manually, where you have to remember to flip a switch to connect/disconnect...Or, there are many automatic solenoid switches available that will do it automatically for you. Depending on the automatic solenoid switch you choose, the wiring is a bit different.

[tg0824SSVGG]

Google "adding a second battery to a boat" -- lots of info, including YOUTUBE vids.

This from the blueseas website, it shows drawings of various wiring diagrams too.

http://assets.bluesea.com/files/resources/brochures/980006440.pdf

I have a smart isolator on mine - I can leave them both connected, the isolator makes sure they are
both charging, but that the circuits are isolated, house is house, starting is starting. ( I can change
the way the switch is set to combine them if I need to, but that's not been required on my 2008)

[barelyfloating]

15556

I went through this exact project a couple years back. Well worth the effort, and very much a DYI job.

15557