safety breaker panel access

[aloysius]

Source of the post It's hard to know what someone else did. . There is some info in the owners manual do you have access to yours? I'm running 6v golf cart batteries for my house bank. I've used this on my other boat and my carver. I also have them down the center bilge along with engine start and genset battery. You may do better with having all your house loads together instead of separate banks for stereo and house and inverter. Mine are all on my 1 bank. Makes it way easier to meter the usage and charge them. With a meter you'll be able to sort it out, you should have your battery selector switch under the step. Just need to sort its connection on 1 & .I'm thinking there's nothing under the step there you'll really need to mess with. It probably can all be checked and reworked in the engine bay.

I'm thinking the same way. I've disconnected the inverter and stereo power and will try to do all the changes to the wiring at the batteries. I do not like the fact that I don't have a schematic of stuff hidden beneath the step, but I believe that I can get a pretty good idea by testing incoming and outgoing amps at the batteries themselves.
Regretefully, I've left the location of my boat for a month or two and will just ponder these things by looking at pictures and going over my notes.
Thank you for ALL your information and advice.

[aloysius]

Source of the post with the layout you mentioned above, what batteries are connected to the engines for starting?

The back two. The front two fed the stereo and nothing else.

[tomschauer]

Sounds like a really odd set up. I believe you are on the right track to figure out the loads and reconfigure the system. Seems odd the stereo has two batteries on its own, unless you have multiple 1500 watt amps and 20" subwoofers.

[Viper]

It's not that unusual to have dedicated electronics banks now. The challenge is to ensure they get charged by a house charger and the engines while still keeping them isolated, and making sure those loads have proper circuit protection since this by-passes the main breaker panel unless you add an additional leg and breakers in the panel.

[g36]

Source of the post

Source of the post It's hard to know what someone else did. . There is some info in the owners manual do you have access to yours? I'm running 6v golf cart batteries for my house bank. I've used this on my other boat and my carver. I also have them down the center bilge along with engine start and genset battery. You may do better with having all your house loads together instead of separate banks for stereo and house and inverter. Mine are all on my 1 bank. Makes it way easier to meter the usage and charge them. With a meter you'll be able to sort it out, you should have your battery selector switch under the step. Just need to sort its connection on 1 & .I'm thinking there's nothing under the step there you'll really need to mess with. It probably can all be checked and reworked in the engine bay.

I'm thinking the same way. I've disconnected the inverter and stereo power and will try to do all the changes to the wiring at the batteries. I do not like the fact that I don't have a schematic of stuff hidden beneath the step, but I believe that I can get a pretty good idea by testing incoming and outgoing amps at the batteries themselves.
Regretefully, I've left the location of my boat for a month or two and will just ponder these things by looking at pictures and going over my notes.
Thank you for ALL your information and advice.

your welcome, clamp on amp meter is a easy way to test amperage. later you might add a victon BM700 battery monitor or similiar to your house bank when you get it all sorted out. these are great while anchoring out to keep an eye on your batteries. leaving for a month would drive me crazy thinking about a project i'm in the middle of and not being able to work on it. best of luck

[aloysius]

I'll look up the BM700 battery monitor you suggested. Would you suggest a good battery charger? My Charles charger is acting up and that is what prompted me to investigating the battery set up in earnest.
Thank you for all your time and comments.

[tomschauer]

I installed a Pronautic 1250p a few years ago and it works very well.

[Viper]

Agreed Tom. I've installed numerous ProNautic P chargers over the years. Still one of the best bangs for the buck IMO. Very low failure rate considering how many I've installed, and I'll say that most failures were due to outside influences. I went with the 1260 and am very happy with it on my twin 8Ds and engine batteries.

[aloysius]

Thank you all for all your input.

More questions, I have 4 AGM batteries, the aft two are wired parallel and each one goes to one of the two engine switches. The other two batteries are wired parallel and do not feed anything. How would you suggest wiring these 4 batteries up?
(I also have one generator starting battery that is only for the gen set. but I'd like to keep it seperate from the other batteries)
How to wire these up and also how to wire them to the charger?
Suggest a Pronautic 1250p or the 1260p? I don't listen to the radio much and run the genset when watching TV. I don't have anything pulling off the DC system other than what came on the boat from the factory. I might put a small inverter on board to run my laptop but that's about it.

[tomschauer]

The 1230, 40, 50 and 60's are all three bank chargers. So one to each main bank and one to the genny.
If you have an LED tv, I would get a little inverter to power it. Its most likely under 200 watts. Then you can watch tv for probably 48 hrs and not drain the batteries. And you will be able to hear the tv without the genny running.
I have a little inverter for my salon tv and one for the aft cabin tv. less than $30 each and work great.