mid cabin - house battery

BobCT · Post by **BobCT** » Fri Apr 30, 2010 9:07 am

I've been emailing with Scott but he has a generator so his setup is slightly different.

I have two questions about my "house" battery, in the middle under the battery box.

1) The POS wire isn't a "battery cable" but is an 8 gauge wire with a ring terminal crimped on. The battery has a threaded post and is attached with a wing nut. It looks like it's been that way for years. With no generator or inverter, it's carried the load w/o any issues. Is it possible it came like this from the factory?

I was expecting a 4 gauge battery cable like all the other connections.

2) The house battery sits on top of a piece of plywood which does look like a factory setup. The bottom of the box is also a little higher. Between the two, the battery box just contacts the house battery because of the height difference.

I assume the original start batteries were heigher so all three were level for the cover.

Anyone else have the same setup?

Bob

ready123 · Post by **ready123** » Fri Apr 30, 2010 9:34 am

The 8 gauge wire likely can handle 24 Amps load of DC current... so depending on what you run and the length it is probably OK. If just house use, frig & lights and stereo that seems fine to me, which is what your experience says.
Only thing I would do is change the wing nut to plain nut. The crimp should be OK if insulated.

g36 · Post by **g36** » Fri Apr 30, 2010 9:59 am

what kind of head do you have installed? i believe the original wire to my crown head on my f32 although it came out of the "black box" was size 8 guage wire. could have been for that?

gardnersf · Post by **gardnersf** » Fri Apr 30, 2010 10:58 am

Bob,

One thing I thought of, is your house battery connected to the engine alternators? If so is there an isolator? Is the house battery in parallel with either engine battery?

Generally, the Trojan 10 meters were set up with house loads split across the two engine batteries. That may be different for non-generator installatiosn as we discussed, but it seems to me that someone took advantage of the space reserved for the generator battery to add a house battery. The wiring setups on these boats were very well done. A potentially undersized wire seems out of charatcer.

Do your windlass and any other loads still connect to the engine batteries?

ready123 · Post by **ready123** » Fri Apr 30, 2010 12:34 pm

g36 wrote:what kind of head do you have installed? i believe the original wire to my crown head on my f32 although it came out of the "black box" was size 8 guage wire. could have been for that?

Or the windlass?

BobCT · Post by **BobCT** » Fri Apr 30, 2010 9:20 pm

I might be making a BIG assumption about the middle battery being a house battery. My surveyor casually mentioned it was and that it should be a deep cycle, not a starting battery like the other two.

Scott, if you're saying that the house is normally split across the two engine batteries, maybe this was installed for the windlass? That would explain the lack of a "battery terminal" on the positive side.

When I got the boat, the windlass wasn't working. I got it working now and eliminated a soleniod which was located in the strorage area behind the helm. I remember checking continuity back to this battery when I was working on the windlass and didn't get a hit.

I think I'll disconnect this battery and find out what doesn't work as a first step.

thanks

RWS · Post by **RWS** » Fri Apr 30, 2010 10:04 pm

My setup is like Scotts, re;house battery setup.

With the genset on mine the middle battery (group size 24) is dedicated to starting the genny, and I aded a cut out switch as the factory had it tied to the port starting battery..

RWS

BobCT · Post by **BobCT** » Sun May 02, 2010 8:54 pm

I pulled the positive terminal off my "house" battery and everything appeared to work. I checked the two most likely suspects, windlass and vacuflush and they both still work on 12v.

Now I'm not sure what that center battery powers. I'll do a little more digging, any other ideas appreciated. Boat did not come with a generator.

Bob

gardnersf · Post by **gardnersf** » Mon May 03, 2010 1:52 am

Time to do the wire crawl

ready123 · Post by **ready123** » Mon May 03, 2010 4:10 am

BobCT wrote:I pulled the positive terminal off my "house" battery and everything appeared to work. I checked the two most likely suspects, windlass and vacuflush and they both still work on 12v.

Would the fridge not fall into that most likely group (any icemaker, AC)? Though it should not need that heavy a wire.

BobCT · Post by **BobCT** » Mon May 03, 2010 6:54 pm

but not the wetbar. Will try that and then do as Scott says and trace wire.

Trojan Boat Forum

mid cabin - house battery

mid cabin - house battery

you guys make a good point...

the plot thickens....

Re: the plot thickens....

forgot to post that, tried the inside fridge as well