Here’s one of those wild ideas that will probably get shot down
(probably by Larry) but some of us may learn something from the
patterns the flames make.

I’ve got a nice, temperature compensated, battery charger for running
off the AC at dockside. When running for long periods under power
however, my expensive AGM’s are being driven by the alternator which
isn’t significantly different from the ones on the Model T.
Retrofitting my larger spare with an expensive, 3 stage, temperature
compensated regulator is on my wish list.

However, why not disconnect the alternator from the battery circuit
and run it to an inverter large enough to run the dual 10 amp battery
charger? The battery charger then plugs into the AC and one charger
does it all. If I switched off the battery charger, this would also
give me some AC power when the engine was running.

I don’t use AC much and don’t care much for making it by drawing down
my batteries. I wouldn’t mind having the engine idling for the
infrequent times I would like AC away from the dock.

If I could make this work (by switching off battery charging) well
enough to heat up my small hot water heater, which would also be
getting waste exhaust heat (although not much with just 20 HP) , it
would be the nuts.

--

Roger Long