Anchor winch - house or start battery?

[Crunchy]

Starting to think about re-wiring the boat (The last owner had a pretty interesting approach to wiring - see pic), looking on the interweb its about 50/50 as to whether the anchor winch should be wired to the house or start battery, which are you guys choosing and why?

I plan on a three switch set up so I can use the house as a starter battery if I ever need to and I only run the anchor winch with the motor running so my thinking is high current draw for short periods it should be connected to the start battery. The downside is another +ve feed to the cabin whereas if I used the houise only one feed to the cabin would be required but I guess that's not a major drama.....

[scottar]

Assuming you are going to fit a VSR as well crunchy, you can sort of have the best of both worlds. If you get a VSR that has a switched over ride, you can hook the over ride up to the anchor winch breaker/switch - that way when you turn on the breaker to use the winch both batteries will connect - doesn't matter where the wires come from then. Only proviso is that you then turn the over ride (anchor winch breaker) off when you are not using it - which is good practice anyway just in case you bump the switch or it gets water in it at 20 odd knots and ditches the anchor automatically

PS - what's wrong with that wiring , looks pretty standard to me.......LOL.

[Crunchy]

Assuming you are going to fit a VSR as well crunchy, you can sort of have the best of both worlds. If you get a VSR that has a switched over ride, you can hook the over ride up to the anchor winch breaker/switch - that way when you turn on the breaker to use the winch both batteries will connect - doesn't matter where the wires come from then. Only proviso is that you then turn the over ride (anchor winch breaker) off when you are not using it - which is good practice anyway just in case you bump the switch or it gets water in it at 20 odd knots and ditches the anchor automatically

OK that's something I hadn't thought of, quite a celever idea really but I'm more of a drifter so only use the anchor once or twice per day....will definately be fitting VSR or similar...


PS - what's wrong with that wiring , looks pretty standard to me.......LOL.

That was after I tidied it up!

[ranmar850]

As Scottar says, run it from the House battery with a switch between Start and House( left off) and a VSR across the switch. Then have a CB in the feed from House to winch. Pop the CB when not in use--my switch had to be mounted up on the dash, so I could operate it with my left while controlling wheel/throttle with right while retrieving. Easy to bump up there. You can close the switch between Start and House if you feel the need to parallel. I've been running this setup on a Maxwell HRC FF6 for a while with nil problems.

[myusernam]

Id run from start. And only when motor is running. Start bats are designed for high current delivery. House more likely to be deep cycle - lower current/ thicker plates. Vsr still good

[myusernam]

Ill add to my last post with an explanation of battery makep.
Normal start batteries have thin plates, more surface area. This allows for the very large currents over a short term required for starting. Your andchor winch is also a very large current device.
The disadvantage of this makeup is they are not as robust. The thin plates can warp and sulphate. If you thicken the plates you give them better deep cycling attributes, but at the detriment of short term high current delivery

[ranmar850]

I have a normal start battery as a house battery--if you don't have a prolonged current draw in House useage, you don't need the extra expense of a deep cycle. Or the weight--as you say, plates are thicker, and D/C's are typically very heavy for their physical size.Typical useage for the majority of smaller boats for House would be to supply the electronics for a few hours at a time when anchored, hardly a requirement for deep cycle there. Anchor winches are not a really high draw--my HRC6FF has a 600w motor, common size for good small boat winches, hence will draw, on paper, 50A. In actual practice, it will be less. On high loads, such as finding the pick stuck, momentarily could go much higher, normally fitted with 90A CB. As the House battery is supplied , via the VSR, from the charging circuit, as you should always be running the motor when retrieving, the whole system is really not stressed.
On the other hand, if you frequent MO is to camp overnight onboard , running a fridge and lights, I'd certainly go to a D/C, isolated from Start by a VSR.

[myusernam]

Yep agree. My personal experience with deep cycle especially normal wet cell lead acid is pretty ordinary. Even my AGM in the car with solar and smart controller is showing signs of degregation as it is cycled 24/7. At the end of the day you only get X amount of charge and discharge cycles. And that figure is I think around 2-300 from memory.
At the end of the day a $90 n70 start batt from a man's toyshop with a two years wty beats any other battery in cost of ownership imho, regardless of application

[ric]

I agree with myusernam.
But I think it also should be about how you retrieve your anchor. We run our winch off start battery and make sure engines are running before retrieving anchor. Also we power up on the line as we retrieve so the winch isnt under stress. If you use a good technique when retrieving you wont put alot of stress on your gear or electrics.