I would like AC power inside my cruiser

Discussion in 'OnBoard Electronics & Controls' started by the brain, Jan 14, 2017.

  1. rasorinc
    Joined: Nov 2007
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    Location: OREGON

    rasorinc Senior Member

    How about under the rear bench seat?
     
  2. the brain
    Joined: Sep 2016
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    Location: AL

    the brain Senior Member

    the under rear seats area is ocupoided w/ 19 gallon fuel tank, bilge pump area, fishlanding plastic tray controls steering tubeing ect.

    I'll probablley start using it when underway.

    think I'll have a voltage guage for start and house batteries? or should I have one guage w/ a switch inbetween the two batteries?

    what do you Guy's think about a 50watt solar panel keeping the house battery topped off when it needs replenishing use the gen to charge.

    I only plan to have one house battery what should I be looking for the most cold cranking amp or options on different types of marine batteries.


    STB
     
  3. rasorinc
    Joined: Nov 2007
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    Location: OREGON

    rasorinc Senior Member

    Go with a 6 volt with converter to 12 volt and 110.
     
  4. Barry
    Joined: Mar 2002
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    Barry Senior Member

    http://www.doubleangel.org/documents/NatlCaseListingBoat-RelatedCOPoisoningsMay2007April2008_000.pdf

    Attached is a long but interesting document showing Carbon Monoxides deaths surrounding boats.

    When I first read your starting post with your wishes to have the gen set inside the cabin and somehow hook up the exhaust outside, I questioned your thread name
    "The Brain" haha, just joking,

    20 odd years ago, we moored to a dock with some other boaters and they had asked if we had heard the news and seen the Coastguard boats, we had not. Evidently 3 people died when they were fishing. The boat was a sedan with a canvas enclosure. The people had anchored to bottom fish and fired up the gen set to "charge the batteries, or run a heater or cook or something". One of the boaters on the dock had noticed the fishing group in the evening and the boat was still there in the morning, rather than having come back to the dock to tie up" and thought it odd so went over to see if they needed some help but instead found the bodies.

    My opinion is that having a gen set anywhere near a cockpit is a bad idea.

    A lot of people have done it and have been lucky and some have not been so lucky.

    You are intending to have deep cycle batteries so why not by an invertor and use the alternator from your outboard to keep them charged. Not sure of the year of your OMC but the alternator could be putting out between 10 and 20 amps at 12 volts.

    Now that you have enclosed your cabin, I would install 2 CO monitors, one in the v-berth close to the floor, and one in the rear cabin close to the door.

    If you are blindly going ahead with it, the only place that I would consider putting it would be on the bow, in as much open area as possible and keep the front hatches windows closed when you are running it

    ABYC prints a comprehensive set of standards for boats in North America.
    Unfortunately the cost to produce these books are expensive. I have attached a link to Bayliners Owners Forum that has a few other links that the contributor has found some of the ABYC information
    Of note for this topic is TH22 and TH23

    http://www.baylinerownersclub.org/i...-boating-topics/33668-abyc-and-nmea-standards
     
  5. Barry
    Joined: Mar 2002
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    Barry Senior Member

    Why??
     
  6. rasorinc
    Joined: Nov 2007
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    Location: OREGON

    rasorinc Senior Member

  7. Barry
    Joined: Mar 2002
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    Barry Senior Member

    A single 12 volt battery is merely 2 6 volt batteries in series.
    Running through a converter/invertor set up to get to 110 volts costs maybe 10% to 15% in efficiency.

    Certainly the 6 volt golf cart concept has many followers but if you match amp-hr ratings and they are the same, then why bother with open to atmosphere flooded batteries. Most AGM deep charge batteries, while more expensive than a flooded battery, can last twice as long, discharge more times than flooded to a deeper level of discharge and take up less space than twin 6 volt batteries.

    As a flooded open to atmosphere battery will produce Hydrogen which is flammable, any of the sealed batteries limit this constant explosion producing situation though when cells fail in either types, you can get an over abundance of hydrogen being produced. If your battery becomes hot, and you have a rotten egg smell, chances are one cell is dead, the battery cannot come up to the voltage point where the sensor in the charger tells it to quit providing current to charge and the other working cells continue to take on a charge. This is a dangerous situation which can cause a battery to explode.

    Caution, at any time if you smell the recognizable odor of rotten eggs, this is Hydrogen sulfide and can combine with moisture in your lungs or atmosphere and create sulfuric acid. Shut things down, let the air clear and change the battery. Or is sulfuric acid in a vapor state. In any case, dangerous
     
  8. the brain
    Joined: Sep 2016
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    Location: AL

    the brain Senior Member

    yes batteries are very dangerous I will have 2 both contained in the proper box and placed outside cabin.

    think I'll have a voltage guage for start and house batteries? or should I have one guage w/ a switch inbetween the two batteries?

    what do you Guy's think about a 50watt solar panel keeping the house battery topped off when it needs replenishing use the gen to charge.

    I only plan to have one house battery what should I be looking for the most cold cranking amp or options on different types of marine batteries.


    STB
     
  9. Barry
    Joined: Mar 2002
    Posts: 1,851
    Likes: 505, Points: 113, Legacy Rep: 158

    Barry Senior Member

    I noticed a lot of rivets in the back of the boat. I assumed that this boat was a welded hull.
    The joint between the sides and the bottom, is this welded or riveted only?
    Many of the older aluminum boats were purely riveted. On the side to hull joint, they would overlap the two pieces of aluminum and put in a mastic tape , and rivet them together.

    The problem here is that if you run a bead of weld near the mastic, the mastic would "melt out-disappear" and create leaks.

    Regarding your house battery, I would buy a good quality battery, Built in the USA, import junk is well junk, and maybe group 31, with about a 100 amp hour rating.

    If you are considering the hassle of using 6 volt, as has been suggested, you need to buy two of them, so you may as well buy two 12 and get twice the amp hour capacity.

    Two 6 volt in series if one battery is rated at 100 ah, only gives you 100 ah rating.
    Two 12 volt in parallel if one battery is rated at 100 ah, will give you 200 ah rating

    I would use AGM batteries, more bucks but a savings in the long run.

    I am not sure what voltage your alternator puts out on your engine but it might not be compatible with the AGM float/bulk charge voltage. I was told by a guy whose only business is selling batteries that the normal charge process of an older alternator is compatible with AGM batteries though there is info on the net to suggest that this might be a little high for AGM batteries.
     
  10. Barry
    Joined: Mar 2002
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    Barry Senior Member

  11. the brain
    Joined: Sep 2016
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    Location: AL

    the brain Senior Member

    I'll check on the voltage output however I plan to keep both sys. indipendant of each other.

    attach image of the construction of my vessels exploded view.
    STB
     

    Attached Files:

  12. Scot McPherson
    Joined: Jan 2017
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    Location: New England

    Scot McPherson Senior Member

    While mathematically equivalent, when it comes to lead acid batteries (AGM and GEL is lead acid also) in actuality a 12 volt battery is usually 6x 2.1 volt batteries in series. A 6 volt battery is 3x 2.1 volt batteries in series.
     
  13. Scot McPherson
    Joined: Jan 2017
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    Location: New England

    Scot McPherson Senior Member

    Well this is what makes smart chargers desirable. Generation 2 and 3 ProMarine ProSport chargers detect faults in batteries and performs a system check of each battery before each charge cycle, and will give you a warning light to tell you what type of fault is occurring.
     
  14. Barry
    Joined: Mar 2002
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    Barry Senior Member

    So in the lower rhs they make reference to the mastic tape.
    Do not weld close to this or any riveted joint.
     

  15. Barry
    Joined: Mar 2002
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    Barry Senior Member

    Hi Scott
    While smart chargers are smart we had a situation with
    5 AGM 185 ah rated batteries in an enclosed battery box.
    (and not vented to atmosphere as per ABYC standards)
    One of the batteries somehow lost a cell and the charger continued to charge at the bulk rate and over heated the batteries. There was a heat sensor, one for the whole charger, but it was on the battery furthest of the 5 and the long and short of it, the temp of the defective battery caused venting, dangerous sulfuric acid based gas, and of course as the charging had gone on a long time, ruined the other batteries. Well two for sure, so we turfed all of them.
    This was a smart charger/invertor with proper selection for the AGM set up
     
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