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Battery setup


Malcolm48

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Advice required re my batt set up please.

My boat has three 110ah leisure batts and 1 starter batt,   all four batts appear to be connected in parallel.

Is this correct, or should they be in separate banks?

The Isuzu33 engine is fitted with two 70A alternators.

Thankyou 

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1 hour ago, Malcolm48 said:

Advice required re my batt set up please.

My boat has three 110ah leisure batts and 1 starter batt,   all four batts appear to be connected in parallel.

Is this correct, or should they be in separate banks?

The Isuzu33 engine is fitted with two 70A alternators.

Thankyou 

 

It is certainly unusual to have two alternator feeding a common batter bank. Usually one alternator charges the domestic battery and one charges the starter battery. Presumably the alternators are paralleled? 

 

By having a common battery bank, you risk not being able to start the engine to recharge the batteries, should you flatten the batteries, perhaps by leaving lights on overnight.

Edited by cuthound
Spillung
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Three is an unusual number of domestic batteries too. Four in parallel is more common. 

 

This leads me to wonder if there is a fifth (starter) battery tucked away where you haven’t noticed it.  

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20 minutes ago, Malcolm48 said:

Good point Mike, unfortunately it will be another week before I can check on that one. Although I can tell you the fourth batt is smaller than the other three.

 

Ah, now that suggests closer inspection will reveal the scenario Tony describes, where only the negatives are all four joined up. I think three positives will be joined up and the forth, smaller battery positive will go off to somewhere else. 

 

 

Edited by Mike the Boilerman
Speeling.
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1 hour ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Ah, now that suggests closer inspection will reveal the scenario Tony describes, where only the negatives are all four joined up. I think three positives will be joined up and the forth, smaller battery positive will go off to somewhere else. 

 

 

agreed

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  • 2 weeks later...

If what I suggested turned out to be true I suspect he will be feeling a bit if a lemon, not realising we all do similar things at times and its how we learn. For many people that is enough for them to keep their head down. Pity really because it is always informative to learn the outcome of questions.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thankyou for all your replies, eventually got up to boat, why can’t the T&M be nearer?

anyway, checked battery banks and sure enough, the neg was connected through all four batts and the leisure/starter batts had separate pos feeds.

Put my neck out in the process, is it a design feature that batt banks are located where you can’t get at them?

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57 minutes ago, Malcolm48 said:

Thankyou for all your replies, eventually got up to boat, why can’t the T&M be nearer?

anyway, checked battery banks and sure enough, the neg was connected through all four batts and the leisure/starter batts had separate pos feeds.

Put my neck out in the process, is it a design feature that batt banks are located where you can’t get at them?

Yes it's a pre-requisite of narrow boating. They're not intended to be comfortable and you're supposed to always wear a hair shirt.

If you don't have a pumpout, then ensure that the loo casette can't easily be withdrawn without dismantling the whole device  

Other rules are:-

  • Make the pumpout tank out of steel, have no inspection hatch and fit it under the bed so that you can't inspect it anyway.
  • Insist on a very small fridge, run it on 12v and later buy a similar freezer.
  • Add - batteries to be 12v and stored where there is no reasonable access - as you have discovered
  • If you have a multifuel stove put it as near to the forward door as you can and ensue that the stack catches your arm when you enter and exit 

That lot is just for starters.

 

  • Haha 1
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2 minutes ago, OldGoat said:

Yes it's a pre-requisite of narrow boating. They're not intended to be comfortable and you're supposed to always wear a hair shirt.

If you don't have a pumpout, then ensure that the loo casette can't easily be withdrawn without dismantling the whole device  

Other rules are:-

  • Make the pumpout tank out of steel, have no inspection hatch and fit it under the bed so that you can't inspect it anyway.
  • Insist on a very small fridge, run it on 12v and later buy a similar freezer.
  • Add - batteries to be 12v and stored where there is no reasonable access - as you have discovered
  • If you have a multifuel stove put it as near to the forward door as you can and ensue that the stack catches your arm when you enter and exit 

That lot is just for starters.

 

Further to this

 

Have a poxy cratch board to bang yer edd on when getting out of boat

Have a pram hood to put loads of stuff under cover that needs taking down every time you go boating.

Ensure the gas locker is a pillock to get at and if at the pointy end made even worse by a cratch and cover

Fit a cross bed so only pygmies can sleep well at night

 

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And further still...

 

Fit a nasty buzzy engine under the floor tightly squeezed in so no-one can get at the starter motor or anything else important without arms like knitting needles and three elbows in each. 

 

 

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