B331 wiring set up

Jan 10, 2018
264
Beneteau 331 Halifax
Hi all, I was having trouble starting and my best tech said the start battery was shot. He poked around and in his view there is no start or house bank. There is a wire that connects all so you only have one big battery. We then checked the specs and sure enough from the disgram in the manual this is the case. So I do not have a separate sart and house bank, they are all one. We disconnected the no good start and all now runs off two giant batteries that are start and house. He said I have enough to run a sawmill. That being said, what do you think of not having separate battery systems?
 
Jun 21, 2004
2,922
Beneteau 343 Slidell, LA
Sounds like PO revamped your wiring.
I can assure you that Beneteau wired the boat from the factory to include a starter bank and house bank with the appropriate switches to isolate the two banks. I have chartered several Beneteaus, including two different 331's, and they were all wired as described above. I would advise reconfiguring the wiring back to the original design. Regardless of how big of a house bank you've got, if the house bank discharges or there is a house bank problem, with the boat configured to the original factory at least you will have a dedicated starter battery isolated from the house bank to get you home. If you have some skill with basic wiring, this is a job that you can do, especially since the switches are already installed. If you don't feel comfortable, hire a marine electrician to bring the wiring back to factory specs. Something that you may want to consider is installing a switch to combine the starter and house banks in the event the starter bank discharges inadvertently (forget to turn off the starter bank when cruising/anchoring).
From your description of your present bank, you probably have two 4D batteries (approximately 400 amps). Even with a sizeable house bank, I wouldn't take a chance and not have a dedicated starter battery.
 

Bob S

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Sep 27, 2007
1,804
Beneteau 393 New Bedford, MA
I would start here. https://forums.sailboatowners.com/index.php?threads/1-both-2-off-switches-thoughts-musings.137615/
It's a good read with lots of input from different owners of different boat brands. I rewired mine like Maine's three ON/OFF switch config. I run mine with the house & emergency switch on and the start switch off. All my demands including starting are taken from the house and the start battery is just an emergency battery. If the house fails I would switch the house bank off and the start switch on and I can still run my electronics and start the diesel.
 
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Jun 21, 2004
2,922
Beneteau 343 Slidell, LA
Stu,
Couldn't agree more with your advice to follow Maine Sail's wiring diagram; its a good setup.
Intent of my post was to comment on BlueNose's question regarding his present setup that uses one large bank to power house and starter without a dedicated starter battery. In my opinion that is a disaster in the making.
 
Last edited:
Feb 26, 2004
23,055
Catalina 34 224 Maple Bay, BC, Canada
In my opinion that is a disaster in the making.
Thanks for so noting. I, personally, agree. However, some folks choose to do it differently. For example, one big house bank with a separate "starter pack." For the life of me, I can't figure out why anyone would choose to have to connect something physically rather than just flipping a switch, but I've been on this bandwagon for 20 years, and still don't get it. Since I don't have a boating electrical business like Maine Sail, I get tried of repeating myself and typing the same stuff over & over, so I built our Electrical Systems 101 topic and provide a lot of links. I "captured" MS's Beneteau wiring because it comes up so often, even though I don't have a Beneteau. That's why it has that kinda snarky intro line, sorry folks. :)

Electrical Systems 101 http://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,5977.0.html

I also don't understand why Bluenose posted this question today when we answered it yesterday. Let's see if he comes back to us on that.
 
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Feb 26, 2004
23,055
Catalina 34 224 Maple Bay, BC, Canada
Maybe one of you Beneteau skippers could put that link into something permanent on this 'site. You know, like taking care of "your own." :):):)