Carver Owners Forum

I will be wiring a new windlass on my 97 Carver 355.....simple question, which battery should I wire to? I have 3; starter, house and generator....thank you in advance!....Ron

Ideally it should go to a dedicated battery. If not the case, I would connect to the house bank BUT add an additional battery to the house. A windlass draws a considerable amount, somewhere around 80+ amps. Wireing needs to be big and as short as possible. Investigate everything before tackling this.

Should be going to the batteries that are connected to the engines while running.....really, run the windlass when engines are running only....have a look at your instructions but if I remember right I think they need to be on start type batteries..like Hans says some take a big draw.......good luck man.....

while i agree they draw alot of amps i dont agree that you neccesarily need a dedicated battery or even a addtional one.i am suprised the 355 didnt have the windlass oem, are you just replacing the old one? if your are wired properly and running your engines while setting and retrieving most of or all of the load can be accounted for. you will not be using it a ton anyway. pull up drop anchor which is not going to be under much load so amps needed would be less than retreival when the unit will be loaded up. if you only have one battery for a house bank then i would agree that it would be a big benefit for an additonal battery but that will help you in a lot of other ways than just for a windlass which would be a side benefit.imo.

midnight sun if you read this, i sent you a message concerning your underwater lights can you check your mailbox?

A few things need to be considered;
- what make and model windlass are we talking about, and what is it's max load in amps during operation? Some draw a considerable amount requiring large battery cable as a result, while others rely more on gearing and draw much less power thus requiring much smaller cable. This will dictate which type of battery you should be hooking it up to, though for this type of load, a cranker/start battery is always a safe bet.
- what does the windlass manufacturer suggest for the type of battery to use? Depending on the design and load, they may recommend a dedicated bank.
- what make and model engines do you have? I'm assuming EFI? While older EFI computers are more forgiving, they still don't like voltage drops. Even with the alternator charging while you're operating the windlass, the computer may still experience a brown-out, more so with a weakened battery, poor connections, charging not up to par, etc. For EFI applications, it's recommended that you not hook up to engine batteries, especially newer EFIs and fly-by-wire systems.

Sorry, totally misread your boat model/year.......So are you just replacing the existing ?

Ron, if the battery banks on your 355 are original, you don't have a house, starter and generator battery. You have one battery dedicated to the generator. The other two are house and starting. your battery selector chooses which one or both supply house and starting. You most likely had a factory installed windless. It should have a breaker under the bottom stair next to the battery switch. The hot or feed to this breaker comes from the battery selector switch output. So it is fed from one, two or all, as is everything else other than the generator.

I have to agree with Tom!