Marshy 30 Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 Hi Team Got an interesting one for ya. But heading to the bay of islands at christmas on Mercenary. The outboard is wired up to charge but does bugger all, maybe 1amp/hour. So im going to look at solar panels to top that up too. Boat is quite light on power needs, but should the need arise how hard is it to setup the boat battery charging off another "Mothership" with a diesel motor? Is there a way to jump the battery into their bank at all and charge it? or would this require unplugging their batteries and plugging mine in direct? I.e. is this a pain in the Proverbial or is it possible? Cheers Marshy Link to post Share on other sites
wheels 543 Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 First answer...... ruff and ready charging, you can jump across, but it is not advisable to fully charge (or worded slightly differently), Charge for too long. Better answer... if the "Mothership" was able to disconnect it's house bank while yours were charging, that would be better. If the "MS" has got a seperate house bank/start bank with a charge splitter, then either house or start bank could be disconnected. Other ideas (incase you don;t have room for solar panels) would be a little genset and battery charger. Link to post Share on other sites
Changed 10 Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 On TM when away I carried a little generator bought at M10 for $99. I used to connect the 12 volt fedd direct to the battery and plug the charger into the 240volt oulet. Worked mint. One litre used to charge the DC house battery. Leave it charging when you go ashore. All charged when you get back. Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 Small genny and as large a smart charger as it will power is probably best. Please don't join the crowd that leave a genny running to charge batteries and then bugger off ashore. If you find the noise too obnoxious then you can be sure everyone else in the anchorage does as well. Make sure batteries are fully charged before reaching the anchorage. Link to post Share on other sites
wheels 543 Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 Changed, don't worry about connecting the 12V output of the wee gen. It will be doing virtually nothing anyway, just like MM found. But more importantly, if you have a multistep charger, it will actually be mucking the charge sensing up and may slow the charger down from what it is capable of punching into the bank. Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 Where's Coldplay? He has it solved. Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 found it Link to post Share on other sites
wheels 543 Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 Depends ion the Hp of his wee outboard though. Link to post Share on other sites
Atom Ant 0 Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 MM when I had my SR I fitted a wind turbine for my holidays. I made it easily removable so that all that was on the boat at other times was a base plate. Worked very well. Ran a Tropicool fridge (which sucks power) stereo, lights, tiller pilot etc. Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 I would go with a 20 watt solar panel I cruised for 3 weeks and didn't run it flat with only solar and motor charging. Don't go for electric cooling as that's a real battery killer Link to post Share on other sites
Marshy 30 Posted October 20, 2012 Author Share Posted October 20, 2012 Thanks guys. Ive done 10 days on the boat for the past two years and never had a trouble with the two big batteries. Even without solar. The boat is all LED lights, and has an LPG fridge so no power draw there. The biggest one is the Electric toilet and the Stereo caining the battery. Im just more worried cruising this year with three of us onboard we will be heavier users. Looking at a 50watt solar panel which should be able to keep on top of it, But wondered if there are other ways to top them up. Wheels has answered my question thanks! Link to post Share on other sites
wheels 543 Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 The biggest one is the Electric toilet Im just more worried cruising this year with three of us onboard we will be heavier users. Two ways to look at this. Not sure which scenario would be most energy saving. Eat foods with more fibre so the macerator doesn't have to work so hard, but may have to work more often. Eat foods that are heavy to digest, like Cheese and Stakes etc. You might not go as often, but the macerator is going to have to naw away and jump on it to push it down the pipes. I assume that's what you are talking about????? Link to post Share on other sites
Atom Ant 0 Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 Is that what you call a bottom up approach Wheels? Link to post Share on other sites
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