[C320-list] Battery Bank - how to go from 2 to 1

[Bruce Heyman]

Alan,
On hull 671 the two house batteries and one emergency start battery are all
under the starboard settee.  We have the two batteries in parallel via the
one two both switch and the emergency start battery is isolated and with a
separate Blue Sea ON/OFF switch.

If you have a bunch of upgrade projects already that you are working on I
would recommend that you punt until you are ready to tackle it.  It tends to
be a slippery slope.  First you decide to put in larger batteries for the
house bank and then you decide to add an emergency start battery.  Well that
means that you probably need a larger alternator which means you will want
an external smart regulator.  Probably will need an upgraded AC charger
(though you may want to fire the Pro Mariner battery terminator now).  For
the ultimate you will want something like a Link 10 or Link 20 so that you
can measure and count all of the coulombs going into and out of the battery.
For now, drop back 15 yards and punt, IMHO.
Bruce
Somerset #671 SoCal

-----Original Message-----
From: c320-list-bounces at lists.catalina320.com
[mailto:c320-list-bounces at lists.catalina320.com] On Behalf Of Alan Goodman
Sent: Wednesday, January 27, 2010 3:18 PM
To: c320-list at lists.catalina320.com
Subject: [C320-list] Battery Bank - how to go from 2 to 1



Having followed the ongoing discussion about house batteries, I am
considering combining my two banks into one.  Since the 4D batteries are on
opposite sides of the boat, how have people done this?  Some of the options
would be to combine the leads for the batteries at the back of the
1-2-off-both switch or run wire under the sole to tie the batteries together
while removing one lead at the back of the 1-2-off-both switch.  Also, I
have a 10 year old Pro Mariner charger which people do not seem to be too
fond of.  It is a three bank charger, so I could add a dedicated start
battery, but given it is so much smaller than the 4D batteries, will that
cause a problem when the charger operates?  I'm spending a ton of money on
other stuff this winter and from what I can tell the current setup works OK,
so maybe I should leave well enough alone until I need to replace the
batteries.  Thoughts?  Alan, hull 67, Holland Michigan
 		 	   		  
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