Hi all!
I'm asking for your help again. And it's about electric installations again.
Here is what keeps me from liking my boat:
I have a 1999, Hunter 410. Some two years ago, I did replace the starter battery (1 flooded group 27), the house battery bank (4 x 6 VDC flooded golf cart batteries as recommended by MainSail) and I did install a new 60 Amp Sterling Power battery charger including a charger monitor.
The boat sits on the dry for most of the year, plugged in on the power cord and the battery charger is always on. From time to time, the batteries are checked, and destilled water iss added as required.
I turned back to the boat yesterday, to do more work on it. Everthing seemed to be fine, until I forgot to turn off the radio when I left for the day. The next morning, I realized, that I could not turn the radio back on. The batteries showed 11.56 volts, when measured. So I checked whether the charger was not on, but it was. After many thougts and words, I found out, that the 60 A inline fuse in the positive cable from the charger to the house bank was shot. The same fuse for the starter battery was still fine. So I took the fuse from the starter battery cable and inserted it in to the cable for the house bank. When I turned the charger back on, it threw out 61.4 Amps at 13.4 volts. As expected. So I continued with the other work. Some two hours later, I wondered, whether the radio could play again. To my surprise, the charger was in conditionning mode with 0 Amps and 13.4 volts. That was way to quick to charge this bank.
None of the instruments could be turned on. So I started my research today. Fuse of the battery bank at the battery switch is 60A and fine. Battery switch is fine. Output at the charger is 13.4 volts. But the bank has got only 11.56 volts! It turned out, that the replaced fuse in the cable from the charger to the house bank was shot again!
My first question is, what can cause this fuse to blow again?
Then I also found out, that I do measure 2 to 3 volts at the main breaker 50A at the distribution pannel, when measured at the positv and the negativ stud of the pannel. Now it was clear, why the radio and all the other instruments would not work. So I measured the volts at the positiv cable at the main braker of the pannel, and the negative stud at the house bank- 11.56 volts.
My second question is, why the heck should a negative cable become all of a sudden a problem? Or do I overlook some thing?
I have to mention, that I'm about to remove the generator, and thus I have disconnected the negativ cable at the generators engine, and disconnected the positiv cable at the starter battery switch. But I do not think this could be contributing to the problems.
I would highly appreciate any hints, thoughts and recommendations.
By the way, do you think I can recover the house batteries?
Thank you!
Marco
I'm asking for your help again. And it's about electric installations again.
Here is what keeps me from liking my boat:
I have a 1999, Hunter 410. Some two years ago, I did replace the starter battery (1 flooded group 27), the house battery bank (4 x 6 VDC flooded golf cart batteries as recommended by MainSail) and I did install a new 60 Amp Sterling Power battery charger including a charger monitor.
The boat sits on the dry for most of the year, plugged in on the power cord and the battery charger is always on. From time to time, the batteries are checked, and destilled water iss added as required.
I turned back to the boat yesterday, to do more work on it. Everthing seemed to be fine, until I forgot to turn off the radio when I left for the day. The next morning, I realized, that I could not turn the radio back on. The batteries showed 11.56 volts, when measured. So I checked whether the charger was not on, but it was. After many thougts and words, I found out, that the 60 A inline fuse in the positive cable from the charger to the house bank was shot. The same fuse for the starter battery was still fine. So I took the fuse from the starter battery cable and inserted it in to the cable for the house bank. When I turned the charger back on, it threw out 61.4 Amps at 13.4 volts. As expected. So I continued with the other work. Some two hours later, I wondered, whether the radio could play again. To my surprise, the charger was in conditionning mode with 0 Amps and 13.4 volts. That was way to quick to charge this bank.
None of the instruments could be turned on. So I started my research today. Fuse of the battery bank at the battery switch is 60A and fine. Battery switch is fine. Output at the charger is 13.4 volts. But the bank has got only 11.56 volts! It turned out, that the replaced fuse in the cable from the charger to the house bank was shot again!
My first question is, what can cause this fuse to blow again?
Then I also found out, that I do measure 2 to 3 volts at the main breaker 50A at the distribution pannel, when measured at the positv and the negativ stud of the pannel. Now it was clear, why the radio and all the other instruments would not work. So I measured the volts at the positiv cable at the main braker of the pannel, and the negative stud at the house bank- 11.56 volts.
My second question is, why the heck should a negative cable become all of a sudden a problem? Or do I overlook some thing?
I have to mention, that I'm about to remove the generator, and thus I have disconnected the negativ cable at the generators engine, and disconnected the positiv cable at the starter battery switch. But I do not think this could be contributing to the problems.
I would highly appreciate any hints, thoughts and recommendations.
By the way, do you think I can recover the house batteries?
Thank you!
Marco
