View Single Post
Old 10-03-2015, 11:18 AM   #29
Xsbank
Guru
 
Xsbank's Avatar
 
City: Pender Harbour, BC
Vessel Name: Gwaii Haanas
Vessel Model: Custom Aluminum 52
Join Date: Sep 2013
Posts: 3,791
As it sits, charging up 12 golf-carts is going to take a LOT of generator running . What am I missing? Lots of battery capacity is great if you have the ability to charge them up again. Running a main engine at anchor is a poor way to do it.

A truck alternator is about $250+ in Vancouver in Loonies. The regulator is more. That is still a good solution but remember the rule of thumb is 10% of your battery bank capacity is the largest size of charger you should use. With 12 batteries in good shape and no solar, that means you need about 240 amps charging capacity. You have 40, adding a 135 amp alternator (they don't usually put out total rated amps) gives you about 175 amps. That is still about 9 hours of genset or about 40 litres of fuel to charge that bank plus a sh*tload of noise.

Even if you can provide 240 amps of charging power it will take 5 or 6 hours to charge that bank from 50% or so. And, all this ignores the start batteries or any others you may wish to float.
__________________
Don't believe everything that you think.
Xsbank is offline   Reply With Quote