Electrical System Upgrade

When we bought Seaquestor, the boat's electrical system seemed to be OK. However, soon after we took possession, it became clear that the starting battery was in very poor condition, since it would start the engine exactly one time after being apparently fully charged. For the 1996 season, we got around that problem by using the house bank to start the engine. To avoid ending up with flat batteries, we were very careful about our electrical power consumption and charged the batteries for at least one hour on each visit to the boat. However, that state of affairs couldn't continue.

At the end of the 1996 season, I removed the three batteries from the boat and took them home for the winter. Once I got them home, I fully charged them (to 12.8 volts) and then load tested all of them. The starting battery was completely discharged after only one hour at a 5 amp draw, while the other batteries were fine. Thus, I decided to replace the starting battery in the spring.

In April 1997, I bought a new group 27, deep discharge, flooded, marine battery to replace the starting battery. I then installed the three batteries on the boat and trickle charged them to 12.8 volts. The electrical system on Seaquestor now consists of the 105 amp-hour starting battery (group 27) and a the house bank, which comprises two additional 105 amp-hour, group 27 flooded batteries. In addition to the DC system, I also bought a 250 watt inverter to provide AC for my notebook converter.

This page posted 12 December 1997 by Todd Dunn expet@unb.ca

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