[C320-list] Alternator Upgrades

[Amirault Family - S&B]

Pat:

Bear had her batteries upgraded last year - Trojan AGM Grp 27 start battery
under the port settee and 4 Trojan AGM 6Vs in series/parallel on the
starboard side yielding 440 AH of house power. This year she was given
(special mention to Dick Walker - 687 WindWalker) a Balmar 60-100-SR-LG dual
foot alternator and the Balmar MC-612-H regulator/w harness. This is a
drop-in which my mech agreed would work fine without a belt/pulley upgrade.

In related work done at the same time this year the original charger was
removed as it had no program for AGM batteries; replaced by a Magnum MS2012
charger/inverter. We also installed (all Magnum) a ME-BMK battery monitor,
ME-RC remote system controller and a ME-SBC smart battery combiner. When
charging is done regardless of source, the charge is sent to the house bank.
The battery combiner, located with the start battery, monitors the state of
charge of the house bank and when that bank is not drawing full amps from
the charge source directs excess charge capacity to the start battery.
Battery characteristics needed by the shore charger are input thru the
controller, and it also supplies battery state information readout. 

The install was not without surprise; the greatest being (and I am to blame
for not reading the available fine print prior to purchase) that the
distance from the inverter/charger to the houise bank was sufficiently great
that the connection required 4/0 wire which was not available locally. This
resulted in a US internet purchase from Florida for the correct size marine
cable and an additional 500$ not budgeted for.   

Brian Amirault
797 Waltzing Bear, too