Issues with warm-battery combiners: LSL Products Trik L Start vs Blue Sea SI-

August 01, 2020, 04:46:11 pm

Issues with warm-battery combiners: LSL Products Trik L Start vs Blue Sea SI-ACR

We have 3 devices in use to combine GEL house & AGM start battery banks.

1) Traditional Cole Hersee 3-pole diode-based Isolator to keep both house & start battery banks under alternator charge when engine is running. BTW, we have our Leece Neville alternator's adjustable voltage regulator (not temp compensated) setting on the low side to not over-volt-charge warm batteries.

2) For 20 years we have used diode-based Trik-L-Start to keep start batteries charged when our shore/generator Xantrex battery charger or Morningstar solar controller are doing their thing. Our first choice for simplicity.

3) Eight years ago, we ADDED Blue Sea SI-ACR to the mix. In the kitchen area a LED is on when SI-ACR is combining and flashing when start-isolation terminal has voltage. We wired start-isolation to ignition rather than starter to not combine when engine is running. Start isolation feature is designed to optionally stop combing when starter is engaged.

Summer is here, on shore power our house battery bank, when at 95-degrees is correctly being float charged at optimum voltage of 13.1.

Our Xantrex's settings allow for custom temperature coefficients and we found -27.00 mV / °F would track Deka/East Penn's optimum charge & float voltage chart for different battery temps.

SI-ACR fixed setting is to combine at 13.0 volts. With a little voltage drop SI-ACR is not reaching 13 volts and not combining, but our diode Trik-L-Start is keeping a little voltage flowing to start bank.

Voltage-sense combiners are getting more popular because they do not have any voltage drop when combined. But we have been aware in very hot weather, with this combiner, there have been times when start bank was not being charged for long periods of time. So our default is always a diode-based combiner.

I just heard back from LSL Products:

"Trik-L-Start is still diode based.

AMP-L-START voltage-sense relay-based, now has a user-settable "High Temperature" mode specifically for temperature-compensated house battery chargers. That when enabled, reduces the turn-on voltage to 12.7 volts, and reduces the turn-off voltage to 12.5 volts. (There's also a "Lithium" mode with turn-on and turn-off voltage specifically tailored to lithium house batteries)."

Re: Issues with warm-battery combiners: LSL Products Trik L Start vs Blue Sea SI-

Reply #1 – August 01, 2020, 07:23:41 pm

X2 on Trik-L-Start.

Our Trik-L-Start has been in operation for over 6 years and has never let us down. Our start battery is always fully charged and ready to go.

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