1. Bought boat. Told during new-boat checkout briefing that Battery 1 position was START battery, Battery 2 position was HOUSE batteries. Trusted briefer who had significantly more Hunter experience than I did, and did not check owner's manual. 2. Anchored out first time, selected battery 2 position, woke up in middle of night after 3 hours sleep (nervous), checked battery status, battery 2 bank read 10 volts! Selected Bank 2 and started engine to charge weak battery. 3. Next day, a boat electrician checked out the problem, and Battery 1 was HOUSE, and Battery 2 was Start. He explained that it was no problem to keep previous habit, just swap the battery leads in the cockpit gullwing locker. Did this. Happy for almost 3 years. 4. A wire behind the battery select panel rubbed through (improperly positioned, rubbing on one of the "battery charger push to reset circuit breaker" ) and shorted out the ability to charge battery bank 2 (now House bank). No problem, swap the battery bank 1 "battery charger push to reset circuit breaker" to the number 2 side, knowing that the 4 group 27's could be monitored for both house and start duty. Subsequently, the real START bank, unable to be recharged, died a slow agonizing death. (I am still waiting for the push to reset cb from Wesgarde.) 5. Now, discovered that the stereo would not work. Dag. no tunes! Took radio to be bench tested, worked okay. Opened DC and AC panels (dusty!). Working backward, traced all power wires for stereo, and found that there are three altogether: one of these originates at the always powered bilge pump switch behind the DC circuit breaker panel. Noticed that moving the switch manually did not operate the bilge pump either. It also was inop. FINALLY looked at the dc power schematic, discovering that the bilge and the radio were powered off of, you guessed it, battery bank 1 (remember, it was originally designed by Hunter to be the HOUSE bank). Shocked to see that in time of trouble that my little bilge pump would have been running off our small, now dead, start battery rather than the powerful, fully-charged, 400 ah house bank. 6. Once push to reset cb is installed, intend to return battery leads to where Hunter wanted them, and modify our habit - the hardest part - to have batt bank 1 House. 7. A lesson learned with no real cost - or at sea pucker factor - everything discovered while in the home slip.
H356 electrical domino effect..
- Thread starter Al9586
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Start 1
Very interesting post! Enjoyed the good read! Just checked in and yours was the first post I read and need to check out but want to pass along my thought. Since our boat is older than yours the manual is much less complete so I've got some latitude. What I did was set up the Start battery to be #1 and House to be #2. The reason is the first thing one does when going on board to go somewhere is (after checking oil, strainer, ect.) start the engine. Hence the #1. After things have warmed up a bit then one can switch over to Both. With Start as #1 I never have to think about it. Otherwise it looks like you've had an interesting learning experience! The 356 is a very nice boat so hope you enjoy the rest of the season with her and there aren't too many other surprises.
Very interesting post! Enjoyed the good read! Just checked in and yours was the first post I read and need to check out but want to pass along my thought. Since our boat is older than yours the manual is much less complete so I've got some latitude. What I did was set up the Start battery to be #1 and House to be #2. The reason is the first thing one does when going on board to go somewhere is (after checking oil, strainer, ect.) start the engine. Hence the #1. After things have warmed up a bit then one can switch over to Both. With Start as #1 I never have to think about it. Otherwise it looks like you've had an interesting learning experience! The 356 is a very nice boat so hope you enjoy the rest of the season with her and there aren't too many other surprises.
On my H356
My house bank is #1 and start is #2, just the way I set it up when I added all the batteries. I don't think I ever use both. Took some labels and created "House" and "Engine" and placed them on the battery switch. I have the Xantex 2000 charger/inverter with Link2000 control head. It takes care of all charging, all I do is check the water levels every month. Either one of us goes below and calls the battery setting to engine and then start it up. They then call the switch back to house. This routine has not failed us - yet! Jim S/V Java
My house bank is #1 and start is #2, just the way I set it up when I added all the batteries. I don't think I ever use both. Took some labels and created "House" and "Engine" and placed them on the battery switch. I have the Xantex 2000 charger/inverter with Link2000 control head. It takes care of all charging, all I do is check the water levels every month. Either one of us goes below and calls the battery setting to engine and then start it up. They then call the switch back to house. This routine has not failed us - yet! Jim S/V Java
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