Battery question...

[ancora]

Memorial Day raft-up with the five year old six golf cart house batteries failing to hold a charge. Getting ready to leave, switch to start batteries and attempt to start port engine and get nothing but clicks. Go to the starboard engine and it starts right up. Wait a bit, go back to port engine and it starts right up. I'm thinking that the port engine starter is hooked up to the house batteries. Why wouldn't both engines be hooked up to the two start batteries? Going to take a look tomorrow and see what's what..although it will be difficult as the boat is Taiwan built with all black welding cables to the batteries, and no color coding on the whole boat.

 

[sdowney717]

I decided years ago to use just one start battery for both engines.
I have anywhere from 2 to 3 house batteries.
I can with the typical 3 stud battery switches, I have just two selector switches, select any combination of house and start or not. The battery selectors I setup to NOT disconnect the alternators, but they are fused.

Any of those batteries can start any engine, so a lot of redundancy.

I also have a generator with its own start battery.

 

[koliver]

The last time I had a click instead of a fast start, I took the connections apart and cleaned them, re-attaching with some dielectric grease. Then everything worked as it should, for a few more years before having to buy batteries again.

 

[River Cruiser]

I have 2 8D batteries 1 starts both mains and 1 house. One engine charges the start battery and the other charges the house using a oil pressure switch to kick the alternator into charge mode.