New owner/ electrical questions

[HENRY]

New owner of 1997 32 Altair #29, previousy Night Flight, now DUET. Desire info on factory installed solar panels...make,output,etc. Trace controller. Panels charge house batteries (4 6v Trojans). OB motors charge 12v start battery but not house bank. Is this the norm or is there a way for OBs to charge house bank as well ? Any ideas,info would be appreciated. BTW is there a factory rep to consult re the 32's ?
Thanks,Jim

[thinwater]

The Yamaha motors only charge at ~1amp at normal revs, so unless you motor a lot, it barely counts.

There is no overwhelming reason to keep a separate starting battery. I have 3 identical group 27s. If they go dead - happened once with old batteries that I forgot to plug in for a few weeks - it is not hard to hand start the motors.

* pump-up the primer bulb.
* remove the cowling and flywheel cover - easy.
* make yourself up an emergency pull rope ahead of time. A handle, a knot, and about 5' of 3/16" line.
* tilt the motor ~ 15 degrees so that the fly wheel is flush with the edge of the enclosure and the pull angle is horizontal. the water intake should still be in the water.
* put 1 small squirt of starting spray into the carb inlet.
* pull. Drop the motor down into the water immediately.

Should catch on the first go.

In reality, it takes so little power to turn the engines, spread over 3 batteries, you are unlikely to kill the battery too far while on-board.

[Lady of the Lake]

On my 36, I have both starting batteries and a house bank. I used a battery combiner to automatically connect them during charging but then breaks the connection once the load brings them down to a preset voltage, which allows all to be used while charged but separates the starting batteries so they always have charge to start the motors. All done automatically without the need for switches to remember...

One of the best additions I put on the boat in my opinion. They are sold at WestMarine but I get mine from the supplier:

www.yandina.com

I used the combiner 100 (he has them on sale now for $59)

Sam

[tmount]

I just replaced one of our 3 original 50 watt Semen solar panels with an 80 watt Sharp panel from Power Up. 2 years ago, I replaced the old Sunsaver solar controller with a Blue Sky Energy Solar Boost 2512i and it seems to work better. On the 2 (!!) really sunny days we've had in the northeast in the last 6 dismal weeks living aboard, we burnt out the 10 amp fuse twice. Blue Sky said we should have a 30 amp fuse so, obviously, the new panel, in combination with the old 2, is providing a better charge since I used the 10 amp fuse for 4 years before and never burned one out.
We have 4 Trojan batteries. My wife likes to switch to only 2 for "house" use when we're anchored but I think keeping them on "all" is fine.
Given the cloudy weather, we've had to use our Honda 2000 generator a few times. It does the trick!
Tim

[Tanah-Keeta]

On Tanahkeeta (36089), I had one starting battery and 4 6 volt house batteries. The port engine started off the starting battery and the starboard engine used the house batteries. I had the 3 50 watt solar panels and they worked ok ... giving enough juice to almost cover the fridge when we had sun... 6 hours per day. The Honda 2000 would replentish the batteries every day and a half. The engines did not supply hardly any charge... I found that when I replaced the engine cables and looked at the fuses in the engine wells, the fell apart from corrosion. If I had kept her, I would have relocated those fuses to an interior dry spot.

[Cat Tales]

Tim,

How much did you modify the hardtop to fit the new 80 watt Sharp panel, with the 2 other 50 watt panels still in place? I've heard that the Blue Sky controllers allow significantly more power to pass through to your batteries. When you blew the 10 amp fuse, did you happen to notice how many amps/hour were being replenished. Our 3 - 50 watt panels produce an average of 7 or 8 amps during peak sunny times, replenishing at the most 50-60 amps for the day (during the summer). I've been thinking about disengaging our charge controller in order to allow for more replenishment, but there are so many days that we are off the boat and I'd hate to fry the batteries when we are not there to monitor them.

Chris

[tmount]

Chris,
We had to slide the remaining 50 watt panels over to accommodate the new slightly longer 80 watt panel. As a result, they are not as protected on the ends--nor are we!--as the old arrangement. We may add some kind of barrier around the ends but so far it's been ok. It was a good time to recaulk all the bolt holes. We had developed some leaks through the roof, including one particularly annoying one which followed the wires down through the stantions into our bedroom. All better now.
Sorry, I don't have an instrument to measure the amps/hour but it's better than it was before--and we're living aboard!
Tim

[Lady of the Lake]

Go out and get one of these:

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_1260 ... word=meter

Best $59 I have ever spent. Any time I want to know current draw of a particular device, just clamp over the positive lead and voila, no disconnecting the circuit and putting the meter in line. I love this thing. Use it all the time. AC or DC. Measure current from the solar panels, draw of the fridge, charge to the batteries from any particular source. Gotta have one on the boat.

Sam