Quote:
Originally Posted by longjonsilver
No, actually i haven't made the final decision yet. The boat that i was referring to in the initial post was finally bought by someone else. i am currently looking at another Hughes 38 - a 1978 version, but many of the same issues apply - she also doesn't have a windlass so the Lofrans Tigre windlass is a distinct possibility.
And, yes, the SSB is an issue. i can't find them in 24volt, and the power drain is substantial when transmitting. i'm also not heading to sea without the ability to get weather maps from NOAA - and that means SSB - or HF ham. ideas?
On the Hughes 38 the batteries are under the forward end of the quarterberth - where the navigator sits. There is a possibility of putting them under the port saloon settee, as i plan on removing the holding tank and using a composting toilet. (i can see no reason to carry a bunch of smelly water around with me just so i can flush the toilet - does EVERYTHING on a boat have to be like the dirt version?)
thanks y'all (even tho she's a sloop)
jon
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For the SSB, there are a couple of good solutions:
The best is to power it with a separate battery charged from the main system with an echo
charger. You can power your main
VHF and maybe other key
electronics from this as well, and then as a bonus, you have an extra safe separate power supply for these life-safety critical devices. This is actually required for SOLAS vessels.
If you go this
route, make sure the echo charger has enough capacity to support the voltage when you're transmitting. The battery itself should have enough capacity to maintain reasonable voltage, but the charger should be capable of keeping it at least 12.5v or so. A small
LiFePo4 battery unit might be ideal for this as they have less voltage sag than lead acid.
I would have done this but just didn't quite have the right space for the battery.
So what I did was simply to use a jumbo
Victron dropper. I was concerned about possibly electronic
noise, but it works fine. Also has a pretty big advantage (like other dropper situations) that it provides stabilized output at 13.6 volts, which is ideal for the
radio and will significantly improve the
radio performance compared to sagging normal 12v supply.
So in my view there is some extra complication, but not really a fatal issue.
Edit: I wrote this this morning but didn't post it until just now. I see that Noelex has pretty much covered this points. I'll leave this post up as there may be one or two useful details.