Carver Owners Forum

Hi everyone, this is my first post as we have but recently sold our 33ft trawler and purchased a 1997 Carver 370 Voyager mostly for the creature comforts. My question is to do with the batteries. In our single engine trawler we had a starting battery and 4 golf cart house batteries. Each was charged by one of the two alternators on the engine as well as one channel on the charger for each set. In this boat all 4 batteries are lined up and a switch under the step says one, two or All. Are these setup as one bank of batteries for start and house? I just can't see where the wires go. I don't think they can be since there are two alternators and it is not likely that they would both be charging the same batteries simultaneously. If you can shed some light it would be most appreciated. Thanks for having me on the forum

Allan

Welcome to the forum.......Do you have the manual for the boat ?....if so there is an explanation of how it is wired with a diagram ,so long as nobody fooled with it.......generally with the switch on #1 then the draws would be from whatever bank is attached to #1 and the engines would charge #1...you see where I am going.....everything goes thru that switch.You will have to check with a multi meter to verify it is still factory.

From that point it is easy to create banks you can control.....good hunting..

On my 1996 370 it was set up as: #1 bank (2 group 27's) #2 bank (2 group 27's).

I just replaced 2 of the 27's with 4 golf carts keeping the 27's as a separate charging bank. They will be connected via ACR for combined charging but I'm not sure where the electrician that helped put the alternator wires.

I do know that the alternator wires are pretty easy to follow as they go from the alternators along the engine room toward the battery area. You can see the bottom of the 1-2-all switch from engine room and the power wires feed through the wall to the battery compartment.

I might be installing the ACR this weekend and will check if I do.

They have some good info on their website as well that's come in handy. I don't think there is anything on there regarding alternator wiring but something to save or even print out for the file.

https://carveryachts.blob.core.windows. ... ual_96.pdf

4mo wrote:Source of the post On my 1996 370 it was set up as: #1 bank (2 group 27's) #2 bank (2 group 27's).

I just replaced 2 of the 27's with 4 golf carts keeping the 27's as a separate charging bank. They will be connected via ACR for combined charging but I'm not sure where the electrician that helped put the alternator wires.

I do know that the alternator wires are pretty easy to follow as they go from the alternators along the engine room toward the battery area. You can see the bottom of the 1-2-all switch from engine room and the power wires feed through the wall to the battery compartment.

I might be installing the ACR this weekend and will check if I do.

Thanks 4mo, it would appear that our 97 has the same setup. I did find the owners manual as well which describes the setup in detail. I can't say that it makes any sense to have house loads and engine start off the same batteries even with two banks. It may be fine for dock queens but for anyone on the hook a fair amount it is just not adequate. Looks like another project

Yeah, we ran it with the 4 27's all summer (24 days on the hook) and we were constantly having to run the genset for two hours in the morning and evenings, and still we twice totally ran down the batteries overnight.

I'm pretty sure with Century plastics' 4 GC battery box you could actually fit 8 golf cart batteries along with a group 31 battery. We took the incremental step of going to 4 GCs and adding a victron battery monitor to give us the state of charge for the house bank. We'll be keeping the starting bank totally separate and charge both via the ACR, so no need to keep an eye on the the starting bank SOC.

I also changed out all the lights to LEDs off of amazon for something like $30.

Still haven't made it over to install the ACR yet. Waiting for another part so I can also finish replacing the starboard fuel pump

Welcome to the forum!!!!!

LaBomba, I have been running my 370 with 4 (27') and always grab a mooring ball. Switch batteries to 1 or 2 when I stop. This summer ran the fridge 24/7 and run the genny in the morning for coffee and hot water, about 1 1/2 hrs. Will again run the genny for 1 1/2 hrs at dinner/night and have never had a problem starting the boat after 5 straight days on the mooring ball. Also, batteries are 5 years old.

In the Carver owner’s manual for my ‘96 355, it says to use the highest voltage battery to start one, then the other engine. Then switch to the lowest voltage battery while running. When you stop,both batteries start out charged. Switch to one or 2 then run that battery down overnight. Then switch to the other battery to start the engines. Fail safe is to start the generator and use the ac charger to charge battery 1&2 if they are both dead. This works fine until some genius decides to wire 2 extra batteries up and place them all in parallel. I got towed to my marina after a faulty diode isolator caused a drain on all 5 batteries over night. I am replacing all the batteries with 3 group 27 or 31. I am putting the wiring back to stock. And I am replacing the charger with a pro mariner 1230p smart charger. I will finish this up in a week or two.

Bentone, did the previous owner also put the generator battery in parallel with the others? Some people do some crazy stuff.
If you return to stock wiring, your genny needs a 24 at the most, a garden tractor battery at least. It is a 2 cylinder honda motor. Not sure why they use 31's for this. Way overkill.