"Paul" wrote in message
le.rogers.com...
Guaranteed that you will find a way to drain the batteries more
than once.

I was under the impression that the inverter could be set to shut off at a
pre-set level of discharge, say 60%. The house bank would also be separate
from the starting batteries so were they to go flat it would mean
decreased
service life and no toast that morning but I wouldn't be in a pickle as
far
as engine starting goes.

My fault - I misunderstood you - I thought you were going
to run off of the engine battery bank.

Spend the money now and get a little 1500 watt Honda generator
or equivalent - I carry one on my offshore center console just to
run the radios and electronics while drifting.

Hmm, I may know less than I thought. I thought running those smaller DC
units would be fine off the house bank.

I'm not a big fan of inverters for anything. It just seems a
little silly to convert AC (overnight charging) for storage in
DC {batteries) for reconversion to AC (inverter) again when
for a small additional amount, you have a nice quiet little
generator that will do all you want and a tad more.

I will admit that I have a12 v DC power supply that the Honda
is connected to, but it's very efficient, I don't use my batteries
except when the engines are running and it's quiet which is
great. I have a small refrig in the console that it runs to keep
water/soda and sammiches cool. I've been trying to figure out
a way to refrigerate my live wells too. ;)

Also, I have a lot of electronics that I run all the time - two
radios, radar, sonar, GPS/plotter, live well pumps (and most
importantly, the refrigerator with the sammiches). The way I
figure it, the less constant duty load I place on the boat batteries,
the better off I am.

Anyway, it's just my opinion. And I will readily admit that
sometimes my way isn't anywhere near the way others will
do it and I make no claims to have the inside track on what
is or isn't "correct" - it's just the way I do things.

Good luck and have fun.

Later,

Tom