First,
electrical is my Achilles Heal. But, I need to figure out my
electrical system, what I have, what I need and the most important issue right now, why nothing seems to be
charging properly.
I have a
catamaran. When running engines my starboard
engine is the
generator. Port
engine doesn’t seem to do any
charging. It heats
water.
Each engine has a Balmer Model 70-80 80 amp and it’s own starting
battery.
I have 6 Full River DC224-6
AGM GC
batteries that were installed in 2018.
For
solar, there are two
There are 2AB switches on each engine, but I’m not sure what they are doing for me (see pic). There is no master switch to shut different
battery banks off. My house
batteries (6 GCs) aren’t taking much of a charge. The best I can do after about 4 hours is about 12.4 volts, which immediately drops to 12.2 or less when I turn the engine off.
My
solar doesn’t seem to be doing much either. I’m in Ft Lauderdale with a sunny sky and it only seems to be generating 1.7-2 amps. I also have a
wind generator, but I can’t tell what it’s output is.
So, a couple of questions.
1 should there be a master AB switch? If yes, where?
2 I am assuming my batteries need to be replaced, I’ll need to verify that with a battery expert.
What about
lithium?
3 what does your solar setup look like? What
power are you getting from it?
4 how do I check my
wind generator?
5 what about isolators or combiners?