What Inverter set up for a F44 Motor Yacht?? Genset is over

[wowzer52]

Kevin, don't let one mans opinion drive you nuts, the rest of us would like to encourage and help in any way we can. You are the kind of guy that could bring that boat back to it's best instead of it getting the chainsaw. I wouldn't doubt that you have your boat in the water doing a test run this year. Some of us have been right where you are at and one step at a time our boats have come back and that is what this forum is about, encouraging the restoration and love of Trojan boats. My F-32 was in similar condition and I loved every minute of getting the projects done. Now when I do a 200 mile run on a plane or cruise at 8 knots for a day, I have pride in accomplishment, and it didn't cost me $20k I'm sure you understand. GO-GET-EM and keep us posted on the progress. I really want to see a pic of her on the water pulling a skier.

[TADTOOMUCH]

Go for it. Don't let anyone discourage you. The money, time, and effort you spend restoring her will be worth more than any kind of therapy you could get from some shrink.

Relax, have a cold brew, and have fun.

[ready123]

And not the least of which, the circuit should be fused. A lot of crazy things can happen with that much power going unprotected!

You are right. I was quite surprised on the size of the required fusible link for just a 4 foot run of DC cable when I was adding my 1500W Inverter.
When one thinks about it ... makes sense as the amount of power in the 12V circuit needs to be higher (10 times) to service the 110V output.
Anyone running a windlass will be familiar with the heavier than normal cables they use.
I wonder how many people don't have fuses on each bank of their charging circuits? I've seen a few and they happily go home after each weekend with their boats left on charge at the slip.

[jwrape]

Ok now I'm almost sick.....
The Genny is running now.
I changed the oil and now it's running.

Stupid me was looking at the low line on the dipstick and thinking it was the full line.
It is so dark down there even with the lights on I didn't realize.
I feel like a dummy!

All that frustration and time cause I was low on oil....
It runs great now.

[LSP]

jwrape ...how'd the party go?

[jwrape]

jwrape ...how'd the party go?

Went excellent. We had a ton of fun and we had live entertainment and 23 total people on the boat. The bow was REALLY heavy during the cruise

[aaronbocknek]

good morning jw.... MAZEL TOV on the genset running. do not feel like a dummy when it comes to things like this. sometimes the most obvious things are the cause of the problem. when i was experiencing generator problems earlier this year, i took my trusty continuity tester out and started testing circuit boards in the control-o-matic and found a .25amp fuse had blown, causing the electrical field not to flow to my main panel. i do have an onan guy here in the baltimore area servicing the carb though and he adjusted the governor and idle speed so that it is generating exactly the correct amount of volts and amps at load and no load speeds. i found this guy by networking at the baltimore boat show in january. when they remove an old onan from a boat and install a new genset, they take all the parts and service them to use on other 'vintage' MCCK units. as for the low oil reading, well, sometimes things like that happen. just keep an eye on it and like my dad and the onan tech said, ''if you have em, use em. they were meant to run and are happiest when they operate. otherwise, they can build up varnish in the system and gum up everything." my onan tech manual said ''run your onan 30 minutes once a week at 50% load to keep lubrication fluids flowing and water from building up sediment and to keep the stator in check." now i assume you have a 6.5 mcck? do not assume that you can use up to 6500 watts..... the 6.5 is a reading that is generated but a CONSTANT wattage is roughly 4.5-5. the onan tech backed that up too.
email me if you have any questions.
aaron

[ready123]

Ok now I'm almost sick.....
The Genny is running now.
I changed the oil and now it's running.
Stupid me was looking at the low line on the dipstick and thinking it was the full line.
It is so dark down there even with the lights on I didn't realize.
I feel like a dummy!
All that frustration and time cause I was low on oil....
It runs great now.

Great news... hey look at it this way... think of all the money and effort you have saved by not converting to batteries and an Inverter.
You should feel great... it works and being an Onan will likely last forever.

[ltbrett]

This thread is drifting a bit. Let me post one note on wire sizing and we can move on. You can roughly convert ac amps to dc amps by multiplying by 10. Watts = volts x amps holds for dc or ac, so you need 10 times more amperage at 12v as you do at 120v to get the same wattage. You can see how long your batteries will last by summing the amperage you're drawing and comparing it with the amp hour rating of the battery. With 120vac, an air conditioner draws about 15a, hot water heater about the same, 240 watts of lighting draws 2a, coffee maker about 4a, for a total of 36a at 120vac. Convert to dc by multiplying by 10= 360a. If you don't draw your batteries down by more than 50%, this load will burn through one 100 amp hour battery in just over 8 minutes. And unless you have a wire at least 1/0, you have a fire hazard. In fact, your wire may need to be a bit larger depending on how long the dc run is. Remember you lose perhaps .1v per foot. The exact voltage loss can be caluculated here:
http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm

and a fair estimate of wire sizes needed can be found here:
http://www.the12volt.com/info/recwirsz.asp

Bottom line is that messing around with shipboard electrical systems requires great care. Penalties for screw ups are severe.

Brett

[kevin babineau]

thanks for the tip...that explains why my inverter system doesnt 'hold water' lol...like i was saying my inverter sucks my batteries dead...as for my coffe maker it might be time to find another one maybe...when i use it boy does the generator kick 'up'