Power management videos are up

[BobJ]

You're doing fine Slack - not TOO lame . . .

I think I suffer from hardening of the categories. If one of the batteries was a starting battery I would only want to use it for starting.

I'm pretty sure I could have made it to Hanalei in 2006 without running the engine at all. Had one of the two batteries been optimized for use as a starting battery I wouldn't have had enough capacity. I've also read that when switched to "Both" for charging, different sizes and types tend to not equalize well. Maybe it's just semantics - one is for house use and one is reserved for starting the engine, but they're equally-sized deep cycle batteries?

I just read the manual for the Balmar ARS-5 regulator. I've always had it set in factory default mode, but you can increase the bulk charge time and all kinds of other stuff that will probably solve my alternator output issue.

[Ragnar]

I really should be working...

So, how do you connect your solar panels? You charge them both up at the same time? Then your loads hit only one, or both during the day? Do you change this at night? If so do you really have an emergency reserve? Do you carry a lot of Advil?

I ran on solar for 2012 the whole way on one group 31 house battery, but I had 150 watts of panels. It is monitored so if I got into trouble (down below 50%) I could just start the engine. But my loads are pretty light. LED's all around and the X-5 electric drive.

[BobJ]

So, how do you connect your solar panels? You charge them both up at the same time? Then your loads hit only one, or both during the day? Do you change this at night? If so do you really have an emergency reserve?

Page two of this diagram shows how they're wired up. I have three panels - two 43 watt panels mounted like speed flaps above the transom, and one amorphous (flexible) 42 watter across the top of the dodger. They are combined through a small bus bar under the cockpit, then into the left side of the linked diagram. Since this is direct to the batteries, both are being topped off continuously.

I do see your point. Maybe think of my two 92AH batteries as one bank, with no dedicated starting battery - so perhaps one monitor for the combined bank is the answer.

Do any of you experts want to weigh in on what other people are doing?

[svShearwater]

Get an inexpensive Group 24 for your starter battery, or if you are feeling flush an AGM Group 24, which won't lose it's charge over time and then you don't have to worry about charging it often. Wire the two batteries you have together. Use them to start the engine unless you goofed up and ran them done, then flip over to starter battery as the backup. The advantage of this is you operate like you have just one simple bank, but have a backup, just in case.

[Ragnar]

Here is my starting battery, 32lbs: http://www.lifelinebatteries.com/marineflyer.php?id=13 It's an AGM, so it can sit there for a while without losing it's charge while I'm at sea. The solar panels don't charge it, but the engine does.

This will leave you with lots of battery capacity for those long SSB chats. The only remaining problem is your batteries are too far forward...







That was supposed to be a joke.

[BobJ]

Here's another angle on it. Most people (including you two) think the engine is the item that needs its own battery, "just in case." Greg (OUTSIDER, STARBUCK, etc.) decided it was the autopilot. He had a battery dedicated to feeding electrons to the AP, with its own solar panel to keep it charged. Then if all the other electrical stuff on the boat was out, the boat was still pointed towards Kauai.

There's also the possibility, so far not successfully tested, that the supplied hand-crank could be used to start the little Yanmar. The crank turns the engine over but I haven't been able to start it that way (yet). In any case, I don't want the weight of a third battery on my marginally-surfing boat.

Then finally . . . I'm currently in the middle of one of the Pardeys' books - they cruised all over the world with no engine. "The decisions you make now will determine if you'll come back from your cruise feeling more empowered or more enslaved by today's consumer society." So there!

[Ragnar]

For me, the "just in case" argument is valid when I'm offshore. I take a bit of comfort in having a reserve, and some redundancy. Greg's thinking is in alignment as he has 2 separate systems, and it's unlikely they would both run down. I guess if I did what he did, I would have 2 monitors, as both house and autopilot systems are vital. Maybe that's where you are coming back to, a monitor for each battery. Two house banks just seems complicated to me.

You could always spend $5k for a lithium setup & save 50 lbs. Then you could surf at 14.4 TWS instead of 14.5. Or you could hit the gym.

I've heard a rumor of people using a gybing mainsheet to crank over the engine & get it started in desperation. I doubt I could hand start my little 13 hp diesel.

No engine in SF Bay? Good luck with that.

[BobJ]

Slack, I don't think of it as two banks - it's one bank of two batteries. I think one monitor will do it. If I ever get the Solo Tahiti Race together I'll add a Group 24 AGM "starting battery" as you suggest... and maybe a cooler!

I've enjoyed many days of SF Bay sailing without ever starting the engine. Now I have a just-big-enough downwind slip at RYC so it isn't as easy. It's kind of a show-off thing anyway when the engine is right there.

Off to the SSS annual meeting!

[Ragnar]

Rags,

Sounds like you're there with the battery system.

I have the jib down and lower the main halfway when coming into my downwind slip. Then drop it altogether on approach. Messy, but it works. I guess you guys with roller furling have one up on me here. I only do it when I - ahem - run out of fuel.

[brianb]

Bob, my hawkfarm had a 8 horse Volvo. I used to hand crank it quite a bit. It was a real pain, but it started. Have you ever read the account of the guy in the Whitbread who started his engine with a line to the boom and a big screaming jibe in the Southern Ocean ? It took him two days to figure out the rig to do it but it saved his race.
Does the start handle have a ratchet of some kind ? Also a bit of starting fluid will help if the engine is stone cold.