Last year I purchased a 2005 Bavaria 32 with DC switch panel 201 and distribution panel 205. There are two group 4D house batteries (240 AH total) and a group 47 starting battery (all wet cells). The battery charger is an SBC 250 Advanced Plus from Quick Italy (and the switch is set for wet cells).
The starting battery is fine but the house batteries are overcharging (gassing/boiling). The PO replaced the batteries in 2008. This seems like a premature failure to me and leads me to suspect the original wiring is flawed. The charger has 3 DC outputs (master, slave A & slave B) and one common ground return. Rather than going direct to any batteries, master and ground are wired to the distribution panel 205. Slave A goes to the starting battery, and slave B is not connected. It seems like their intention was to allow the battery charger to run 12V equipment like the fridge when on shore power so as not to drain the house batteries. For those familiar with panel 201, the bottom right yellow LED (“hauptschalter” is “main switch”) illuminates when either the battery switch or battery charger is turned on. The green LED directly above and to the left (above the graphic of a battery) illuminates when the battery charger is on.
The down side of this arrangement is that when the main battery switch is on the charger never drops to float and the house batteries overcharge. When the main battery switch is off the house batteries do not charge at all and the charger displays flashing LED errors. I think I should run a new master line direct to house battery 1. I am also wondering whether I should wire slave B to house battery 2, or perhaps instead connect slave B to the existing wire going to the distribution panel? In other words, is it more advantageous to charge each house battery individually or together as a single bank? Or will the direct connection to the distribution panel do more to preserve battery life when the fridge runs 24/7? Thank you in advance for your suggestions!
The starting battery is fine but the house batteries are overcharging (gassing/boiling). The PO replaced the batteries in 2008. This seems like a premature failure to me and leads me to suspect the original wiring is flawed. The charger has 3 DC outputs (master, slave A & slave B) and one common ground return. Rather than going direct to any batteries, master and ground are wired to the distribution panel 205. Slave A goes to the starting battery, and slave B is not connected. It seems like their intention was to allow the battery charger to run 12V equipment like the fridge when on shore power so as not to drain the house batteries. For those familiar with panel 201, the bottom right yellow LED (“hauptschalter” is “main switch”) illuminates when either the battery switch or battery charger is turned on. The green LED directly above and to the left (above the graphic of a battery) illuminates when the battery charger is on.
The down side of this arrangement is that when the main battery switch is on the charger never drops to float and the house batteries overcharge. When the main battery switch is off the house batteries do not charge at all and the charger displays flashing LED errors. I think I should run a new master line direct to house battery 1. I am also wondering whether I should wire slave B to house battery 2, or perhaps instead connect slave B to the existing wire going to the distribution panel? In other words, is it more advantageous to charge each house battery individually or together as a single bank? Or will the direct connection to the distribution panel do more to preserve battery life when the fridge runs 24/7? Thank you in advance for your suggestions!