The alternator has an internal regulator. It can also be used with an external one as long as the internal one is disabled. And yes the outboard was stolen.
Frustrating day..
- Thread starter Mark Maulden
- Start date
Tough break having the OB stolen. Hope the insurance helps. 
As for Betamarine, I have several friends that have bought engine packages from them and when one was installed with a bad transmission it was replaced (very!) quickly with a local ace mechanic getting paid by Beta to expedite the work.
Balmar, OTOH, is a company I have some personal experience with. I bought one of their Smartgauge monitoring devices. It was DOA when I got it wired in. They did replace it with another new one, but I had to pay the postage and insurance to send it back east to their warranty station.
Only takeaway is that new parts can fail right out of the box, even from top notch vendors.
Good luck on the whole situation.
As for Betamarine, I have several friends that have bought engine packages from them and when one was installed with a bad transmission it was replaced (very!) quickly with a local ace mechanic getting paid by Beta to expedite the work.
Balmar, OTOH, is a company I have some personal experience with. I bought one of their Smartgauge monitoring devices. It was DOA when I got it wired in. They did replace it with another new one, but I had to pay the postage and insurance to send it back east to their warranty station.
Only takeaway is that new parts can fail right out of the box, even from top notch vendors.
Good luck on the whole situation.
Success! I wired up the tach circuit from the alternator through the regulator and back through the Beta harness to the panel. Fired up and voltage went right up to 14.6 which is what the regulator is set for. I have no idea why alternator tach pulses are required to excite a regulator. I was warned that when batts get to full charge the tach could drop out using the internal regulator. I did not use the tach circuit previously as it was a magnetic pickup and non electronic tach.
With my balmar (Old boat) I could watch the regulator and it would flash all sorts of codes, battery temp., Alt temp., charging volts etc...... very informative stuff.
Tach pulses shouldn't be required to charge the batteries - but if already at float voltage without a tack the Balmer will kill voltage to the field; they won't start charging until they get a little lower. Enabling the Tach causes the field to always be energized (just a bit) so you can get a tack reading.
Les
Les
Strange. With the old Volvo and this regulator, using series 7 alternator, I swear I could go off of shore power at float voltage and crank up and the batts would go into absorption at 14.6V. No tach hooked up as the old Volvo had a magnetic pickup for the tach. Why shouldn't the same work here? The only difference is the batteries as the Volvo config had 6 yr old batts and this current config has new ones..