Thinking now of moving the batteries. Here's a shot taken from shore. Winds were around 15 and gusty so I was sailing on just the main. You can just see from the blurry pic that the stern is riding a little high. I think that the two batteries up by the v-berth is too much weight too far forward. I guess I will have to separate the batteries and install them farther back.
Ideas for mounting second battery in a H23.5
- Thread starter PropellerHead
- Start date
I have two batteries on my H26. They are behind the bulkhead in the cockpit berth (aft port side). The battery switch and shore power plug is in the cockpit locker (also port side) so the run to the batteries is very short. The battery charger is mounted to the bulkhead in the cockpit berth so I can see the indicator lights easily. I also mounted a solar charge controller to that same bulkhead and I leave my mast crutch attached to the stern so it doubles as my solar panel pole.
Ive got 2 deep cells in battery boxes starboard side locker across from sink ,tight fit but it works
No just fit a1/2 board in locker floor,glassed in .Batterys are in plastic bat box,no tops but held down with straps provided with boxes,10 yrs no problems
I did a quick moments calculations, and got the design moment of the motor, fuel, and battery (on the h23.5) at around -1160 ft-lbs. With your setup (assuming 100 lbs of batteries and 25 lb motor) I get a total moment of +113 ft-lbs. So, yeah, I'd say you're bow heavy. Moving the batteries behind the aft berth I get around -1520 ft-lbs, which is about the same as adding stern rail seats to the original boat, or having a 9.9 hp instead of a 4 or 6 hp. If you put your two batteries in the original battery location I get a moment of -660 for the system.
Can you share a little about your methodology for finding these moments? I take it that you're computing these moments in reference to the center of buoyancy? How did you find that point?
OK but that's not all right? To find a moment, you need a weight and a distance. So you took the center board to be the center of gravity and you took the displacement from the manual and you computed the moment from some other point? What was the other point?
Update on this mod. Batteries are now in the stern and now she's squatting just a bit but much better than before. In other news, we're contemplating some longer trips so I decided to spring for a little 6hp Tohatsu. It just took one trip with the outboard to confirm that the trolling motor was the way to go. What an unpleasant racket. As soon as I'm through the break-in period, the outboard is going in the V-Berth to serve as ballast and a backup in case I run out of battery.
I'm a little curious how you calculated that. I have a little 30# thrust motor on the back of my H170 with a group 27 battery & I consider myself lucky to get 45 minutes out of it.
A few years ago, I started building a small 12 vdc gen set out of a 4-stroke week whacker motor & a 1-wire Chevy alternator. Unfortunately, that project got side tracked when other projects came along. A little gen set like that might give the electric motor concept a bit more available range if you were to get caught short.
Didn't calculate it. I was going off reported experience of others. Since then, the biggest test of the setup so far was motoring out of Homestead Bayfront Park in South Florida. It's 2.4 miles round trip from the ramp to the end of the channel. I've made the trip a couple of times now (once with a 10knt head wind both ways!). I made it back with the cheap battery gauge on the motor reading over 60%. Can't say how accurate the gage is but I guess it's not too far off. One unfortunate surprise is that the power plug the motor came with can't really handle prolonged operation at full throttle. Gets really hot. It's on the list to upgrade it.
When we started talking about longer trips, my idea was to just buy one of those little Honda inverter generators but the admiral vetoed that idea. I think that she might have come around if I'd gotten her a ride on a sailboat with an outboard first..
When we started talking about longer trips, my idea was to just buy one of those little Honda inverter generators but the admiral vetoed that idea. I think that she might have come around if I'd gotten her a ride on a sailboat with an outboard first..
I've had good luck with SB series connectors from Anderson.
https://www.grainger.com/content/general-catalog?pagelabel=947&search=3BY20
https://www.alliedelec.com/anderson...MI8JOV6qud3gIVQksNCh1yNQdXEAQYAyABEgK2s_D_BwE
https://www.google.com/search?q=and..._qq53eAhVpm-AKHTPUDyQQsxgILA&biw=1268&bih=881
Just don't try to mix & match colors or sizes. 50 amp gray fits 50 amp gray, but does not fit 50 amp red nor 175 amp gray, etc.
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