New batteries

Believe it or not, if you go to the West Marine website, they do a very good infoguide to consumption on a regular boat.

Battery tech has moved on very greatly in the last ten years. Are you looking for 2 engine start and a genny start battery setup with a house bank of 4 x 8D AGM (gel-filled glass matt) deepcycles running through an inverter which is a normal cruising set-up but costs a bit.

It all comes down to how much time you spend only on battery-power vs cost. In our house, electric, hot water and pool in Antigua is all solar powered charging just 6 x 8D batteries, except when Mom is ironing, then the genny goes on for an hour.

Cheers

Dave

i'm a big fan of golf cart batteries for house and inverter banks. they can take the abuse and the deep cycling and they are easy to replace (1/2 the weight of 8Ds). usually cheaper too but i've seen claims of 8Ds beiung equivalent to the price of 2 6v. either will get you about 220 AH

AGMs, etc... are nice but too expensive. they are supposed to last a little longer but i dont' think the price diffrerence is worth it unless maybe your batteries are hard to reach making adding water a real PITA

Pascal, normally I'd be in 100% agreement with you, but there's one thing to consider: GCs outgas and (I'm told) AGMs don't. My Connie's got 8 GCs for the house bank and they're great and cheap. But in the Roamer I'm restoring, the pitting on the inner hull under and in the vicinity of where the batteries were has me thinking that fully sealed AGMs are best for this aluminum application.

What do you think?

yes it depends on the boat... some boats have batteries in the livign quarters so you really dont' want lead acids in there... alum hull? probably not either unless they are in sealed boxed with a venting hose outside.

Batteries in the living quarters??? GAD! Can you imagine what that must be like when they equalize them?!? lol

Nasty story time. After Hurricane Luis I was asked to go down to a 38 footer to just run-up the Yanmar to check it worked. After checking for a clear flow of water to the strainer I cranked her over.

So as she started the starter motor stuck, the throttle stuck wide open and the engine was just screaming at full revs. The shut-off solenoid did not work and no manual over-ride.

Then I noticed the 4D engine start battery started to spout 4inch blue flames from the breather holes on top of the top-up caps.I had to grab a big kitchen knife and a washing-up rubberglove and chop the fuel line and the positive cable quickly.

Very frightening, very quickly. All this inside the saloon.

Good battery switches and even a VSR (voltage sensetive relay) an ARS or BRS is a must, this will stop any voltage returns when ......er not required.

Not nice.

Fish

rag in the intake or plastic bag over the air filter...

couple of years ago my genny started running away... stop didn't work, shutting off the fuel valve didn't kill either, it was running on its own oil due to overfiller crankcase after water ingestion. I opened the sound shield, ripped the air filter (foam) and stuffed a rag ins the intake.

i never unsderstood why so many builder do not install the battery switches outside the ERs... well, yeah i know... they save a few bucks on the wiring...

Hi,

In an emergency situation where all engine stop devices have failed a CO2 Fire extinguisher squirted in the Air Inlet will interrupt the combustion process ( stop the engine)

Pascal and K1W1,

Yeah to be honest I should of just shoved the rubberglove in the air intake. It's just when it all goes tits-up it always happens so fast in multipules that grow. Like any situation, having seen it once is a big lesson. Hence this whole forum.

Cheers guys

Fish