Unusual fuse?

Streff · Mar 10, 2020

In our new to us Californian, several things came out of the survey that I am trying to address. I am pretty handy with most electrical stuff but wanted to get input from this forum. The battery system in this boat is a pretty disorganized, so trying to clean things up.

There are 3 sets of batteries, one battery aft for the Stern thrusters but it is also connected to the house batts. Middle set for the engine. FWd set (2) supposedly for the house. Between those 2 fed batteries there appears to be a broken and disconnected glass fuse that connects the pos and neg terminals. My question is what would be the function of such a fuse? These batts are connected in parallel.

The boat has 24V bow thrusters but I cannot any 12V batteries connected in series to power the thrusters?.

Lastly, the pos lead of port engine alternator is taped off and not connected to anything? What would be the reason for that . On inspection the alternator looks fine.

Any input or ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks

Streff

High Wire · Mar 10, 2020

Streff said:
In our new to us Californian, several things came out of the survey that I am trying to address. I am pretty handy with most electrical stuff but wanted to get input from this forum. The battery system in this boat is a pretty disorganized, so trying to clean things up.

There are 3 sets of batteries, one battery aft for the Stern thrusters but it is also connected to the house batts. Middle set for the engine. FWd set (2) supposedly for the house. Between those 2 fed batteries there appears to be a broken and disconnected glass fuse that connects the pos and neg terminals. My question is what would be the function of such a fuse? These batts are connected in parallel.

The boat has 24V bow thrusters but I cannot any 12V batteries connected in series to power the thrusters?.

Lastly, the pos lead of port engine alternator is taped off and not connected to anything? What would be the reason for that . On inspection the alternator looks fine.

Any input or ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks

Streff

Do the thrusters work?
Are all of the batteries charged?
Did you check each with a DVM >12.6V
An alternator may look fine on the outside but inside could be shot or wrong voltage. The PO may have been a long term marina resident and used battery charger only.

O C Diver · Mar 10, 2020

Streff said:
In our new to us Californian, several things came out of the survey that I am trying to address. I am pretty handy with most electrical stuff but wanted to get input from this forum. The battery system in this boat is a pretty disorganized, so trying to clean things up.

There are 3 sets of batteries, one battery aft for the Stern thrusters but it is also connected to the house batts. Middle set for the engine. FWd set (2) supposedly for the house. Between those 2 fed batteries there appears to be a broken and disconnected glass fuse that connects the pos and neg terminals. My question is what would be the function of such a fuse? These batts are connected in parallel.

The boat has 24V bow thrusters but I cannot any 12V batteries connected in series to power the thrusters?.

Lastly, the pos lead of port engine alternator is taped off and not connected to anything? What would be the reason for that . On inspection the alternator looks fine.

Any input or ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks

Streff

Pictures would be helpful.
I would approach this in reverse, what doesn't work?

Does the bow thruster work. If not, look at the motor for voltage and see if it's connected to batteries. If not connected, maybe the alternator is 24 volt and the system died with parts removed.

Check the alternator tag for voltage.

Ted

tiltrider1 · Mar 10, 2020

What we do know is that someone wasn’t doing things right. You need to assume the worst and hope for the best. If you are handy with electrical then pick up Nigel calder’s book on “boat maintenance and electrical”. He will walk you through how to set up your boat.

catalinajack · Mar 11, 2020

Sounds like you are a candidate for a complete new setup. When we bought our DeFever 44 six years ago, the system was a mess of original and add-ons with a semi-functional inverter-charger which was fed through the original ferro-something charger which bothered me a lot conceptually. I paid an ABYC electrician to install a freshly engineered system from scratch. Four golf car batteries (eight total) were relocated from boxes outside both engines to a new, centrally-located battery box just two running feet of wire from the new inverter-charger. Blue Seas ACRs ( Automatic Charging Relays) supply charging current to the thruster battery and the generator starter batteries.

Instead of patching your suspect system, you may do well by a full redesign but budget considerations are often a factor.

Unusual fuse?

Streff

Senior Member

High Wire

Guru

O C Diver

Guru

tiltrider1

Guru

catalinajack

Guru

Similar threads

Latest posts