Can someone please enlighten me as to the various tactics to combat power trips while using my electric power winches? Coincident with using my power winches, there appears to be a low voltage (or current?) spike which causes the GPS to drop out temporarily, and sets off an alarm on my MFD's. Any thoughts on this aspect of electrical system design would be appreciated!
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It's not unusual for the voltage to drop substantially when using power winches. If the voltage is dropping so much that it effects your MFD's, then clearly something is wrong. Look first if your winches are wired directly to the batteries vs, sharing wiring with your DC panel (bad), and look next if you have enough battery capacity to support the load of the winches. Expect that as you work thru the solutions your going to need to use either larger diameter cables (less voltage drop) or more battery capacity, potentially opting for a dedicated battery bank (batteries designed to be starter batteries are better for winches vs. deep cycle)
Dan - thanks for the reply. It sounds like I need to do some basic homework on the boat wiring and systems. From reading the recent good/bad wiring practice related post it sounds like these issues are fairly common. As far as alternative tactics in tackling this problem; what about using the Newmar power conditioning system
(http://www.newmarpower.com/DC_Power_Conditioners/DC_Power_Conditioners.html)
or something like the APS
(http://www.newmarpower.com/Battery_Isolator_Integrators/Battery_Isolator_Integrators.html#APS)
I have not seen any Panbo related posts as regards these products or anything similar - any comments or feedback?
Mike
Mike,
The DC Power conditioner would get the job done, but thats not the normal approach to the problem.
The isolator alone makes no sense, but if you dedicate a battery for your winches the isolator becomes useful for creating a path to get that additional battery charged without having to think about it (e.g. operates manual switches, etc.)
Dan