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Battery Meter
On 22 May 2004 16:46:20 GMT, (Gould 0738) wrote:
Come to discover that my track record of never being stuck without
battery power is nothing but dumb luck.
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It's not dumb luck at all. You're keeping the boat at a dock and it
spends most of its time connected to shore power, with a decent
battery charger which is not overcharging or undercharging. You have
a power boat so that when you are underway the alternator is keeping
things topped off. Your battery bank is of an appropriate size that
time on the hook does not run the batteries down too much, and when
you motor back to the dock the alternator tops things off again. Your
batteries will last a long time under that scenario because they're
always being topped off and never get used very hard.
Change this scenario by keeping your boat on a mooring, anchoring out
a lot, and/or converting from power to sail, and your usage pattern
will change a great deal. Now the batteries work hard for a living,
rarely get recharged much past 80 to 90% of capacity, and are
frequently drawn down to the 50% level or below. You will definitely
need new batteries much more frequently and will ocassionally find
yourself with a bit less reserve power than you'd like. People who do
extended cruising away from shore power invariably have one or more
ways of recharging without the engine: auxiliary generator, wind
charger, or solar panels. Many have all three and are glad to have
the redundancy. My personal preference is for two generators, or one
generator combined with an engine mounted high capacity alternator.
That's because I have an above average number of electronic toys to
keep running and have gotten used to air conditioning, heat and hot
water on demand. It wasn't always like that and most of my sailboats
were lucky if they had a fresh pair of Sears Die Hards,
PS, when fully charged and left idle for a short time the batteries
will read about 12.6 volts under any of these scenarios. Been there,
done that.
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