Hi,
My
boat has a
battery charging system that consists of a Xantrex TrueCharge20
charger, a Xantrex PathMaker
battery combiner and a dual
solar system with one ProStar-15 controller
charging the starter battery and a Blue Sky
Solar Boost 2000E charging the house and aux battery bank. There are 5
AGM batteries 2 house, 2 aux and one starter.
Normally the
boat is connected to
shore power when not being used (I sail mostly on weekends) but In August I sailed to Captiola CA and left the boat on a
mooring for 4 weeks. During this time the solar was maintaining the battery charge adequately (mainly powering the refrigerator) and she was not connected to
shore power.
However when I sailed home (back to SF bay) mostly under
power, I discovered that the
batteries were not charging from the
alternator (a 100A Balmar).
All of the
equipment is around 5-6 years old (I've had the boat for 2). It has all worked well until now.
I have two questions. First, is there a device that switches the charging
current to the house batteries, or are all supposed to be contributing to charging at once? Second, is this likely to be a problem in the
alternator or in some device that switches the source of charge (if so, what device and how to test?)
I would appreciate any
advice, as I am obviously not an expert, but would prefer to learn than to just call my
mechanic.
Any
advice?