350 mariner battery switches

[Viper]

Source of the post I've seen battery chargers wired to the load side of the selector switch rather than the battery side. If this is the case only the selected battery will charge.
You may want to check this out.

+1

[feeez]

Source of the post Don't get into the habit of leaving the battery switch on "Both". As mentioned in another post, there are several pitfalls when you do this. Leaving it on "Both" at shore with the charger on defeats the purpose of the charger's ability to deal with each bank's unique charging needs which are very different from one another. By setting the switch to "Both" you combine all batteries into one bank which with some chargers may drive them crazy as you'll have more than one charge lead on the combined bank. This may shut down charging all together in some chargers.

I am now definitely going to attack this issue when i am up there this week. I took look in behind that pane recently and one of the wires coming from the battery charger breakers was disconnected from the battery switch and that breaker was connected to its neighbour with a small buss bar. I will post some pics or a video to show how mine is set up. I think in this set up the charger is only charging the battery bank that the switch is set to which kind of defeats the purpose of having a multi bank charger. The generator battery charging wire is connected directly from the breaker to the battery positive.

Fraser

[feeez]

During our last visit I pulled the panel in the salon to further my investigation of battery charger breakers versus battery selector switch position. In my previous post I though that two of these breakers had been bussed together that was wrong. But, here is what I found.

IMG_0575.jpg

IMG_0576.jpg

IMG_0577.jpg

I suppose that a previous owner decide to connect the wire from the Battery 2 charger breaker to BOTH on the selector switch. So, my battery charger has been charging bank 1 and 2 as one bank. I will replace the broken breaker ASAP and reconnect the wires properly which I assume is 1 to position 1 on the selector and 2 to 2.

Fraser

[feeez]

Source of the post Thanks guys...big help....I have to check batteries to see if charger is connected directly to them or to the switch by the back door.
Cant figure out if the fridge auto swtches to 110 as soon as it sees shore power , can you leave the fridge 12v switch on all the time and fridge picks 110 when available over the battery????
Today we left it with shore 1 on with the fridge receptacle on...battery switch on both.....everything else off....so we shall see what is what by Tuesday.

Feeez we are right next to you, live right in town.One of these days I may just drive over there and you can show off your battery setup.

Bud37
Here is the pic of the battery set up

IMG_0574.jpg

[bud37]

Cool , good to see how you put them in there, I like that ..How many amp hours are the 4 in total??....we got the boat home yesterday ,everything good....figured out the fridge and battery switches, all seems ok.

I guess that broken stud would explain the charging issues......wonder why PO would not have just changed the breaker???

[feeez]

Source of the post Cool , good to see how you put them in there, I like that ..How many amp hours are the 4 in total??....we got the boat home yesterday ,everything good....figured out the fridge and battery switches, all seems ok.

I guess that broken stud would explain the charging issues......wonder why PO would not have just changed the breaker???

Here is the link to specs for those batteries. If I remember correctly 4 of them in a series parallel array gives about 450 amp hours
http://www.trojanbattery.com/pdf/datash ... Sheets.pdf

I have no idea why they would ignore this broken stud issue. Anyway I will order the new breaker on Monday and get it installed this week.

Glad your move to the bay wen smoothly. I hope you enjoy your 350 as much as we do ours.

cheers
Fraser

[Viper]

Good catch Fraser.

[feeez]

Source of the post Good catch Fraser.

Thanks Viper.... we have found a few things like this on the boat since we have owned... go figure.
Am a I correct about the way that these wires should be connected?
Battery 1 charger breaker to selector switch 1 position
Battery 2 charger breaker to selector switch 2 position
I always like to confirm things when it comes to electrical issues.

Thanks
Fraser

[Viper]

Yep, they must be hooked up to the battery/source side of the switch.

BTW, please tell me you hooked up a chassis ground wire of the proper rating to the new charger.

[feeez]

Source of the post Yep, they must be hooked up to the battery/source side of the switch.

BTW, please tell me you hooked up a chassis ground wire of the proper rating to the new charger.

Yes, Hooked up per the instructions. 1 gauge less than the positive

Fraser.