T-Pain Is On A Boat: Re: [Electric Boats] Re: Which path to take?

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Re: [Electric Boats] Re: Which path to take?

I was thinking up to a 100 amp.
The plan is to be full time live aboard in a few years.
I have researched and found 12volt versions of most everything and my thought is, why not build the system in such a way that I would only really use the shore power to run the battery charger. While at dock the charger would keep the batteries topped off even though I would be pulling from the house batteries. So maybe it would not really be cycling the batteries and wearing them out. Then while away from dock there would not be anything that I could not use just because I was not on shore power.

The down side is DC versions of stuff tend to cost a lot more then the AC versions. But with DC to AC inverters you loose efficiency.

On 2/15/11 11:17 PM, luv2bsailin wrote:

3/0 sounds awfully big. What size alternator are you running?
As to the other electrical questions, so much depends on how you use the boat and what you're comfortable working with. If you'd prefer to stick with 12V, why not just size your wire accordingly? You could go big on the main run to minimize drop and put a couple terminal studs at each end so you can step down to a more manageable size for making battery and alternator connections.
Seems to me that would be simpler and cheaper than the other options. Then again, an AC system makes sense if you live aboard and/or want to run a lot of appliances and spend a lot of time plugged into shore power.
Personally I like to have both, 12V for everything that's essential to safety and navigation (radios, lights, bilge pumps, etc.) and 115AC for all the non-essential "comfort" items.
Just my $.02
Jim

--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "Linus" <wmunger@...> wrote:
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> The main issue with this thought I think is charging the batteries. If I use the engine DC alternator to charge the batteries, that will be about 20-25 feet away. If I use a 12 volt one it will take a 3/0 wire to keep the voltage drop down. If I use a 24 volt one I can use a lower gauge wire but then what do I do to connect the batteries? would I have to step down to 12 volts?
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