[C320-list] Re: [catalina320] starter battery

[Jeff Church]

Darrell,

I spoke with Bob at ProMariner again. As expected, his suggestion for using 
the third post on the charger was wrong. He suggests that you test the 
charger and if it is defective they will sell you a rebuilt unit. In any 
case, I think it might be advisable to buy a Xantrex.

I guess I'll hold off on adding a starter battery until I'm ready to upgrade 
the charger.

JeffC


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Church" <jjemail at comcast.net>
To: "Catalina 320" <catalina320 at list.sailjazz.com>
Sent: Friday, October 28, 2005 12:30 PM
Subject: Re: [catalina320] starter battery


> Darrell,
>
> You aren't wrong. If you follow that procedure you are charging one bank 
> at a time while you are running the engine.
>
> The problem might be that you are overcharging the Group 27 battery while 
> using the battery charger.  I've been considering installing a starter 
> battery so I spoke to a customer service person at ProMariner. I have a 
> 1998 320 with a Flyback charger. I think your boat has the same.
>
> It is very possible that there is too much of a differential between the 
> capacities of the battery banks, in which case, the smaller bank will tend 
> to overcharge. I specifically asked if one Group 27 and two 4D's in 
> parallel is too much of a differential. The guy practically choked.
>
> His advice was to first check the charger. Remove all the DC leads from 
> the charger. Power on the charger and using a multi-meter, test voltage at 
> each of the chargers battery connection posts. You should get 14.6 volts 
> between each positive post and the negative post. Leave the charger on. 
> After 3 hours it should be in float mode where you should get 13.3 volts. 
> That will tell you if the charger is working correctly, but probably won't 
> fix the overcharging problem.
>
> After that, he suggested possibly connecting each battery to a separate 
> charger post. (There are 3 posts on the charger. The unused one should 
> currently be jumped to one of the others.)  When I asked if the paralleled 
> batteries would really be sensed independently, he was not sure. He is 
> going to talk to the engineers on Monday. I'll call him back next week.
>
> Hope that helps a little.
>
> JeffC
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Darrell" <dgray at n-sea.org>
> To: "Catalina 320" <catalina320 at list.sailjazz.com>
> Sent: Friday, October 28, 2005 11:18 AM
> Subject: Re: [catalina320] starter battery
>
>
>> Thanks Jeff and Richard, I also have the starter battery on one and the 
>> housebank on 2. I typically leave the selector on 1 for about 15-20 
>> minutes after starting then switch thru both to position 2. At this point 
>> I assumed that only 2 is charging, but maybe I was wrong. If so , where 
>> do I install the isolator? Back to the charger , if one positive lead 
>> goes to bank 1 and one to bank 2 , then it sounds like the charger should 
>> be monitoring each bank seperately and charging accordingly. Can I check 
>> this with a multimeter to determine if the charging current or voltage is 
>> different for each bank? Darrell, Antares, #88
>