320/326 Owners Batteries/ Solor what's your setup

[kjretlaw]

I purchased my 326 #339 last year and besides enjoying sailing it in Charleston Harbor and short trips. I'm setting it up for a trip down to the Bahamas which I hope will be an annual trip. But as all 320/326 owners know the port settee isn't long on room for battery banks. What is everyone doing for battery setups, are you using solar as well. I'm looking to scale this design down for the 326. http://roadslesstraveled.us/sailboat-solar

 

[seadaddler]

solar

I have solar on my 2007 H-36 and not so much stainless asthe one you are showing,do you have a bimini and frame for your bimini.
What I did was mount 2 round stainless poles from my arch and the poles go back to the rear with a added stainless pole frame for support and 2 aluminum angle across the poles to mount my 2 panels and all wires run into the arch.
Give me another day to post photo's and than you can see what I did,about $1000.00 for every thing 2-195 watt panels wire cables and stainless hardware and charge controller.
Nick

 

[kjretlaw]

Thanks Nick look forward to seeing the drawings and pics

Walter

 

[seadaddler]

Solar

How my solar is done
Nick

 

[seadaddler]

Solar

More

 

[seadaddler]

solar

More

 

[kjretlaw]

Great pics thank you very much

Walter

 

[FourPoints]

Maine Sail fairly recently showed a very nice looking install he did on the Bimini fabric with a semi flexible panel, no stainless frame required, and overall about the same cost. I would strongly suggest checkin it out.

 

[Benny17441]

Rather than sizing a battery bank for one trip a year there are other alternatives. We run an h320 with two Group 27, deep cycle, wet cell batteries. They fit well under the port side setee. We had looked into a larger bank and considered wind and solar chargers but came to the conclusion that for our normal year round sailing it did not make sense as any installation would be costly and require additional maintenance. We opted for something we already had, which is a portable Honda eu2000 generator. We can keep a small bank recharged by running it underway or at anchor for a few hours. Its primary function is to run A/C and TV in those hot and muggy evenings. I know some people consider a generator an invasion on peace and quiet but it's hum is a small price alternative to a sleepless and sweaty night. A trip to the Bahamas once or twice a year is easily handled by our setup. The largest power usage in the boat comes from the 12V refrigerator, the auto pilot and the inverter. Pre-cooling the refrigerator and packing it with precooked frozen meals allows us to turn it off for hourly streches while maintaing temperature during the long Gulfstream crossing or overnight stops in the shallow Banks. The beer and snacks go in an ice cooler. The auto pilot as well as the inverter are seldom utilized and just for short periods of time during the crossings. We have never had a problem with the setup nor experienced any hardships due to lack of limited electrical storage capacity. One clear adavntage of using wet cell batteries is that they are relatively inexpensive and a replacement can be found almost anywhere. This is not for everyone but our type of cruising favors the use of marinas wherever available and that allows to keep the battery bank charged. We really do not use the generator that much in any trip.

 

[onecoolair]

suit case generator

Rather than sizing a battery bank for one trip a year there are other alternatives. We run an h320 with two Group 27, deep cycle, wet cell batteries. They fit well under the port side setee. We had looked into a larger bank and considered wind and solar chargers but came to the conclusion that for our normal year round sailing it did not make sense as any installation would be costly and require additional maintenance. We opted for something we already had, which is a portable Honda eu2000 generator. We can keep a small bank recharged by running it underway or at anchor for a few hours. Its primary function is to run A/C and TV in those hot and muggy evenings. I know some people consider a generator an invasion on peace and quiet but it's hum is a small price alternative to a sleepless and sweaty night. A trip to the Bahamas once or twice a year is easily handled by our setup. The largest power usage in the boat comes from the 12V refrigerator, the auto pilot and the inverter. Pre-cooling the refrigerator and packing it with precooked frozen meals allows us to turn it off for hourly streches while maintaing temperature during the long Gulfstream crossing or overnight stops in the shallow Banks. The beer and snacks go in an ice cooler. The auto pilot as well as the inverter are seldom utilized and just for short periods of time during the crossings. We have never had a problem with the setup nor experienced any hardships due to lack of limited electrical storage capacity. One clear adavntage of using wet cell batteries is that they are relatively inexpensive and a replacement can be found almost anywhere. This is not for everyone but our type of cruising favors the use of marinas wherever available and that allows to keep the battery bank charged. We really do not use the generator that much in any trip.

So no grounding issues with suit case generator??

 

[Ken13559]

Here's my batteries in the Port sette compartment. 3x100AH Primary Bank and 1x 105AH Secondary Bank.

 

[MrSteve007]

I just finished up a battery and inverter upgrade on my 326

In the Port settee: 250 AH 8D battery, new combiner switch, 40 amp dual battery solar charger and a Mangum 2000W inverter/charger.

Over on the starboard side, I isolated a dedicated starter battery with an extra ~105 AH Optima "blue top" battery I had.

Since I'm only using her for fairly short trips, my PV panel is just a 21 watt roll-up flexible panel that I lay out on the cabin-top while I'm at anchor. I had a dedicated, watertight connection wired into the top of the cabin, next to the mast. In the future, I may upgrade to a larger array setup, above the davits.

 

[onecoolair]

Here's my batteries in the Port sette compartment. 3x100AH Primary Bank and 1x 105AH Secondary Bank.

Looks like a nice clean setup......But???.....It looks like you have two of your green wet cells in the wrong orientation.....Main Sail has a good write up .
BTW.....Is that a pro tech battery charger ? Make sure you have enough air circulation your battery looks very close to blocking the side cooling fan vent. Mine is about 10 years old and still going strong.....It did require a fix last year to the way the grounding post is mounted on the corner of circuit board. The connections are just to tightly spaced on the circuit board and can be easily shorted damaging diodes on mother board, which only the factory can fix.
My problem started out 10 years ago when new. The units grounding cable installed by factory was not properly tighten to the stud post on mother board. And shortly after I took delivery the ground post on the main board got very hot , Just short of a fire. Cable connection to stud was redone back then. But the damage had been to grounding stud connection of which the powers to be past it off as okay. Till last year when I came down to boat after a few weeks to find one battery bank totally flat. The grounding studs connection to main boards copper circuitry finally gave out. So I pulled the unit took it home where my Dad the Master Electrician and I dissected it.....I went to the Hobby Lobby Crafts Store Picked up a piece of flat copper plate, and with surgical precision rebuilt that portion of the boards grounding circuitry creating a new solid mounting location for ground stud. Then I made one more improvement fixing what I would call a factory design defect by adding four 6" pig tails to the mother board . These pig tails are then bolted down to a separate external hot bus and ground bus. No longer does one have to risk shorting out the main board. When needing to inspect or disconnect unit.

 

[Ken13559]

Robert,
The batteries has to be oriented that way in order to fit 3 inside. I did took some pointers for Maine Sail's articles. Battery is close to the ProTech but So far no cooling problem. The ProTech was new replacement some 6 years back. Original got killed, along with most instruments, on a thundery day.
Thanks for the info on the ground post.

Ken