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Prospector
Master Marine Consultant

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Canada
3159 Posts
Initially Posted - 04/13/2009 :  08:23:13  Show Profile  Visit Prospector's Homepage
On the drive to church for the Easter vigil, I got to thinking about the troulble I have recently had with my batteries. Then the sermon was long and arduous, so on the back of the offerings envelope I started listing all the things that could still be wrong with my batteries. I drew out a little diagram, and scratched my head and ignored SWMBO's glare.

When we got home I walked through everything I had written down, and tried a couple small things. The switch I bought to be able to shut out the charger had 3 tabs on the back of it where the wire could be connected. I remembered someone ttelling me that you can tell whether a switch is working by measuring the Ohms across it. I tried measuring th eOhms across the 2 tabs that I had wired the switch with, and found a miniscule difference between the on and off position. Then I tried it across other combinations of the tabs. Hey! A diiferent combination had the multi-meter go from a big number to zero when th eswitch was thrown. I rewied the switch.

Next I took the battery with a lower charge than the other out of the boat and put it in the basement on a trickle charger. I could have done that on the boat, but having it in the house meant I could monitor it more closely.

Finally, I disconnected the solar charger altogether for the time being. (One less thing to worry about.)

We went to church (again) on Good Friday, and when we got home, I checked on the battery in the basement. It had gone from 12.4 V to 14.2. I un hooked the charger, and left it sit.

On Saturday morning I got up early, and checked on the battery again (12 hours to let off the surface charge...) It read 13.4 V. Yippee!

Re-installed the battery in the boat, and threw the switch to turn on the shore power charger. Then I was bad and went back to bed instead of going to church.

On Sunday morning, I went out to the boat before we headed t church. the shore charger had its green light on (everything is good) and the batteries were showing 13.4 V. Woo Hoo!

So now I have a 115 AH Deep cycle mated to an 85 AH Deep Cycle/Starter both of which are under a year old. And both of which Appear to be charging properly. I am tentatively thrilled to have solved my battery problems. It just shows tha tgoing to church will solve the biggest problems in life.

On the downside, I tried to clean epoxy off my trim ring for the solar vent with Acetone. It worked really well. Ate away the epoxy, and disolved the plastic deck vent.I'm emailing Nicro today to see if I can get another plate. Now that I've learned more than I wanted to about electrical stuff its time to move on to fibreglass/epoxy.
"Iris"
1984 FK/SR #4040
http://frosthaus.blogspot.com/

Take a minute to register your boat with the association!!
http://www.catalina-capri-25s.org/owner_questionnaire.htm
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Nautiduck
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
3704 Posts
Response Posted - 04/13/2009 :  15:00:58  Show Profile
You should tell the preacher that his sermon gave you the opportunity to reflect on a big problem you were having and to resolve it.
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John Russell
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
3444 Posts
Response Posted - 04/13/2009 :  15:56:33  Show Profile
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Nautiduck</i>
<br />You should tell the preacher that his sermon gave you the opportunity to reflect on a big problem you were having and to resolve it.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">Amen.
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redviking
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
1771 Posts
Response Posted - 04/13/2009 :  16:06:05  Show Profile
And to think about all of those years as a youth being raised a Jehovah's Witness, wasted because I wasn't smart enough to invent the inline diesel engine generator while at church.

http://www.jinanengine.com/inline_Diesel_engine.html

I assume you kept the offering envelope?

sten
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Notice: The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.