Trojan Boat Forum

Last year I installed a new voltage regulator in my ignition system becuase it had oozed all over my tranny. My volt meter upon start-up now shows about 14.7 volts and never goes into the red range. After running about 1/2 hour it starts to drop to 13 volts but still in the green range. It never quite gets back to the normal black and white range on the volt meter.

The other engine when started up shows the voltage in the normal range all the time at about 12.5 volts. I have never seen it out of this range.

Do you think the new voltage regulator is working right and the one on the other engine isnt doing anything at all or is the new one running too high a voltage? I swapped batteries to see if it was a charging issue but that had no effect.

Anyone know what is normal for an F-32?

have you checked it with a hand held meter yet ? But 13 sounds ok, 14.7 sounds like catching up and then 13 sounds like it caught up..

My understanding is that the F32 DC load is wired to only one engine's harness. So I would expect one engine's battery (Starboard I believe) to be the one that is regularly discharged by DC service within the vessel.
This is easy to check by turning off or on each engines black DC switch to see which one controls lighting etc:
My view of Voltmeter gauges is that they are mainly a guide and one should not try to glean any specific levels from them.
As suggested check with a handheld meter....... start to worry when the charging Voltage does not reduce with time which suggests the battery is not taking/holding charge.

On my F-32 the original wiring for the house came off the port engine starting battery which I changed to a dedicated house bank. I agree with using a handheld meter to check both alternator and regulator output. However, if you have one weak battery it will draw longer while running until charged.