Adding a second battery to a 2013 Sport 200

[ZimmZimmZalaBimm]

Can anyone point me to a post or other site where someone added a second battery to Sport 200 (v-drive)? The factory setup uses a single battery so I gather there will be no issues of house versus power, etc., just a deep cycle backup piggy backed to the starter battery with a switch and Automatic Charging Relay. Parts, layouts, and "watch out for's" would be very helpful as I am a new owner of the boat. Thanks in advance for the help.

[MLA]

A Dual Circuit switch and ACR is certainly one dual bank setup, but you can also go with a simple OFF/1/1+2/2 switch. The DCP/ACR is more complex on the front end, but very user friendly. The traditional dual bank switch is less complex to setup, but takes some user discipline to use.

The only 2 things that are really boat specific, are battery and switch location. The wiring scheme is more about the switch setup chosen.

[ZimmZimmZalaBimm]

Thank you. How complex is the ACR in this single loop design? I was hoping it would be pretty straight forward, but grabbing data from random websites can be misleading...or so I hear.

[bturner]

If your 200 is like mine this is not going to be a simple task. I've looked at this several times and there are multiple challenges that would need to be addressed. These are what I was looking at....

Physical

• The battery in my boat is located in a cutout of the ballast tank on the port rear storage locker. Unless you plan to remove the hard tanks (or they're already out) there's no where to go back there aside from vertical which doesn't look like a very good option to me.
• If you remove the hard tanks it might be possible to move the battery(ies) forward then turn them 90 degrees to get a smaller power package but IMO you'd want to go with the smallest physical size batteries you can find to get the smallest footprint possible. I'm currently running an Optima with a cut down battery box which really helped with my piggyback ballast system but it's still tight.

Electrical

• The cable runs in this boat are ridiculous. The battery is located in the rear and the fuse panel with the switch is located under the driver's side dash. Unless you plan to somehow bypass the existing switch you're going to replace the existing switch with the new switch, run an additional positive cable from the new battery to the switch. There's room just forward of the divider to mount an ACR and wiring it there would make for a clean installation if done properly.
• Don't know about your installation but on mine they left zero slack in the hot/ground cables running to the switch. Depending on how and where I mounted the ACR this could result in the need to run another cable to the switch.
• I didn't go any further exploring the second battery option after going through the above but in my short time investigating the cabling options I didn't see an easy path to run the cables from the batteries to the switch. Maybe you have all this figured out already but with my limited time scoping this out I didn't see it, but who knows maybe it just runs up the gunnel.

So with all the above considered and what I was actually getting for my efforts I bought an Antigravity Jump box (https://antigravitybatteries.com/pro.../micro-starts/) and carry that with me. Yeah, I know not sexy and I am a bit disappointed in myself seeing I had dual batteries in the last 2 boats and have installed probably at least 3 others for friends. What really pulled the plug on this project for me was not having a house and start battery circuits. For me that was the point of the whole thing. Play the tunes all day, start on the good battery and let the isolator figure out the charging. In short..... The juice just wasn't worth the squeeze for me.

For just adding a second battery I think the schematic below would be the wring you'd want.....

[MLA]

Sorry, not familiar with the term "single loop". With a dual pole single throw switch, you have specific loads that draw from each banks, which are isolated from each other. With a traditional dual bank switch, most every load draws from a common point.

[ZimmZimmZalaBimm]

"So with all the above considered and what I was actually getting for my efforts I bought an Antigravity Jump box"
Bturner, you have saved me many hours and tons of cursing! I truly appreciate your detailed response.
MLA, i was just trying to describe the use of one power path that includes house and power, rather a two systems. Without separating those paths I can't see how run a true two battery setup - just adding more battery capacity. Bturner explained it much better...and saved me mucho dollars.

[bturner]

Yeah I sat in the boat last winter with a 6'er for about 3 hours staring at this then pulled a bunch of cushions out, pulled the power panel out and just plain tried to figure out how and where to mount the other battery. The only thing I could think of was either removing the tanks or getting another port tank and installing it on the starboard side which had another set of problems. Either way I would be running more long cables and doing an installation where the cost/benefit equation just wasn't there.

I really like this boat but the contrast in size is somewhat remarkable between this 20' boat and my previous MC X2 which was 20' as well. The X2 seemed extremely large for a 20' boat but only weighted about 200lbs more. My friend's Malibu VTX while not as large inside as the X2 is considerably larger as well. Just strange how boats with what would appear to have somewhat similar specs on paper can feel and be so different in person.

[MLA]

You could just wire 2 batteries in parallel for added CA and reserve. However, you would want to purchase 2 new and identical batteries. Its not advised to connect a new battery to a used battery, nor is it wise to wire 2 different types or sizes together. So it would not be a case of " just a deep cycle backup piggy backed to the starter battery".

Further, in the above setup ^ there is no role for an ACR.

Without separating those paths I can't see how run a true two battery setup

This is the upfront complexity I spoke of. More work on the front end to have dedicated and isolated house and cranking banks. With a more traditional OFF/1/1+2/2 switch, you dont have to separate any loads as everything (except the auto bilge) go though the common output.