I want to do a little rewiring on Yo Ho next spring, but I haven't
really thought through what I should do.
As equipped by Parker, the boat came with two Group 27 wet deep cycles,
connected to a battery switch. If I put the switch on both, the Yamaha's
alternator charges both batteries.
The boat has a 12V refrigerator which to date I have not used. It runs
off the batteries, naturally. If I turn the refrig on and follow my
usual pattern of drift fishing or fishing at anchor, it will naturally
draw down stored battery juice. I could switch off one of the batteries
while the engine is not running, and let the refrigerator run off of the
battery that is still connected...but this cuts my start-up the engine
margin of safety. Typically, while drift fishing or fishing at anchor, I
shut down all the electronics. I keep my portable VHF on, though, but it
has its own battery.
What I am thinking of doing is installing a third battery, just for the
refrigerator and/or the electronics I might use while at anchor. That
part is fairly simple. The problem is, I'm not sure how I want to keep
that particular battery charged. I'd like the engine to juice it back
up, but I don't want to tie it into the regular circuit...and I don't
want to mess with a bunch of battery switches that I'll forget to turn
on/off or whatever.
So I've been toying with mounting a solar panel on the cabin roof, one
that is hooked only to the accessory battery. But that, of course, will
not be enough to rejuvenate the accessory battery if the refrigerator is
running.
An alternative is a small nuclear-powered reactor, but...with Saddam on
the lam, my usual eBay source of fissionable materials is gone...
--
Email sent to is never read.
Throw out the DC reefer. Buy an efficient dorm size AC reefer, and a 1000
watt inverter. parallel a second deep cycle battery to your house battery
and run the inverter off that. As far as manual battery switching goes check
with West Marine and intellitec for alternatives.
Happy T day,
Jim