I am just learning about the Centaur chargers and wondering when it would be useful on a boat. I planned to have a quattro inverter taking power from a generator and shore power. The inverter would charge a house battery bank. There are also solar panels connected to an mppt controller recharging the batteries as well.
A few more pieces, an orion-tr controller to regulate power from the alternator into the battery bank. And lastly the Centaur. From what I understand it is like a mini-generator that will charge the batteries from either ac or dc input.
Here is my question. Could I use the Centaur as a failsafe? The Centaur would get input from my inverter, and output to the house bank. My intent is when the batteries are empty, solar, shore power, and generator are off: the Centaur will click on as a backup and charge the batteries as kind of a last resort? My intention is this in conjunction with a BatteryProtect would be the ultimate last resort to protect my house bank from cycling to deeply or leaving my boat without power. After everything ran out, the BatteryProtect would just cut the batteries off.
I ask because it seems like a lot of connections to the battery bank, with the orion-tr, the inverter, the mppt controller, AND the centaur. Can this be done safely and have I understood and applied the use for the Centaur correctly? I also worried a bit about the quattro AND centaur both being connected to the house bank while connected to each other. Could this potentially cause problems? I realize the inverter would not attempt to charge the centaur during low power situations like battery only, but wanted to check for sure.
I plan on being at anchor a lot, and my batteries will be the only source of power for extended periods of time, like months. Just when the generator/alternator/solar is not on of course.
@Matthias Lange - DE
