1991 480 Dance Inverter Question

[dbh95]

A friend recently purchased a 1991 480 Searay. On the long voyage from the purchase site back to his marina (10 hours) the 12 volt batteries died. Is there an inverter installed on this model boat? If so, where is it located? The fridge (110V AC) was still running when at sea without the generator running so we assume there is an inverter. We turned off the refrigerator and all other 12v items and the 12 volt panel meter still showed a draw of over 40 Amps DC.

We were also wondering why the ships engine alternators did not charge the 12 volt batteries. Could it be that the alternators only charge the 24v battery bank?

Does he always have to run the generator to keep the 12 volt batteries charged?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[PascalG]

while the owner of a similar boat will be able to give you soem ideas, when you are dealing with older boats... 10, 15 years and up... previous owners have often replaced and upgraded many systems making it hard to compare two boats.

your friend need to spend a full day getting acquainted with his new boat... crawling or poking his head into every hole he can find looking for evey sea cock, thruhull, switch, etc...

people often upgrde or replace chargers and inverters... usually for the best, but sometimes with creative wiring...

also, he needs to get a multimeter and check altenator output...although the gauge at the dash should indicate if they're charging and what. if the main system is 24v, then the engine alternators are likely to be 24v. any 12v bank may require the genset to be running to charge, unless a 12v alternator is also installed on one of the engines or both. again, he needs to crawl around the boat.

i don't know how good searay is at supporting older boats but maybe he can get wiring diagrams and other blueprints... even with modification, they're very useful to learn a new boat. And the survey should list the on board equipement.