Adding a second house battery bank

[BruceK]

We think it`s worth starting the genset to power the espresso machine, but we`d usually be doing other things, like batts, hot water.
I`ve an old stovetop "Atomic" we no longer use,it`s like a piece of Italian art design in shiny aluminum, worth searching to see one.
A couple of years ago we put an LED in the anchor light, a tower type so perhaps bigger. Lots more light, much less draw. I can run all 5 interior LEDs that replaced the 25W incandescents, drawing less than one incandescent.

 

[Lou_tribal]

We think it`s worth starting the genset to power the espresso machine, but we`d usually be doing other things, like batts, hot water.
I`ve an old stovetop "Atomic" we no longer use,it`s like a piece of Italian art design in shiny aluminum, worth searching to see one.
A couple of years ago we put an LED in the anchor light, a tower type so perhaps bigger. Lots more light, much less draw. I can run all 5 interior LEDs that replaced the 25W incandescents, drawing less than one incandescent.

I looked at your atomic coffee maker, very nice design!
( I think that thread drifted a bit )

L

 

[ranger58sb]

On a side note, I recently replaced my anchor light bulb with a LED one, cheap version at 2.5$ a pair and the result is just amazing. The light is brighter than the old incandescent and use 15x less energy.

We replaced about 30 interior overhead G4 bi-pin incandescent bubs, a few overhead T-30 wedge bulbs, and about 15 T-10 wedge courtesy bulbs... and the whole anchor light fixture (previous stalk was failing anyway)... and I added a 5m (~15') strip of LEDs in the engine room.

Partly to get better lighting (warm white, for interior overheads, bright white for engine room) and partly to decrease energy consumption, especially the anchor light. Good on both counts. The new anchor light is almost as bright as a streetlight in the distance beyond our dock...

FWIW, we did some of that in stages, and some of the first G4 LED discs -- which were still mostly working at the time, but with a few diodes out here and there -- had begun showing some serious signs of heat build-up on the backplane when I replaced those with newer products.

I found that a bit worrying... most of the new ones and replacements are from marinebeam.com, if that helps. (The strip was from superbrightLEDs.com) Not inexpensive, but I worry less.

-Chris