Advice Needed: 330 Battery Set-Up

[HMBJack]

Greetings,

I have a 2006 330 Express. Love the boat however I'm concerned about how the batteries were set-up at the factory by Grady. There are 4 G27 batteries. Two banks of two with each pair paralleled. Problem is, from what I can tell from the wiring drawing (page 8-24 of my owner's manual)- each bank starts an engine AND supports the house circuit.

Bank 1 (2 G27's) Starts the Starboard Engine, Genset + feeds the Main House circuit via a 2 Gauge cable.
Bank 2 (2 G27's) Starts the Port Engine + feeds the Windlass and, not sure, but maybe the Bow thruster too.

For obvious reasons, I would prefer to NOT have a house circuit connected to an engine.
Should I leave it "as is" or separate the house from the engine start batteries somehow.
I guess I could install a Blue Seas battery isolator to preserve the Start battery (on Bank #1) from the House load or perhaps install a voltmeter to keep an eye on Bank #1's draw and, if below 12.0 volts, I could fire up the Genset which will charge the batteries. It just seems to me this battery set-up is not optimal or - in my case - not "Idiot Proof" (lol).

Thoughts?

 

[HMBJack]

Has anyone re-configured their batteries on a 330?

I do not like the current set-up where a house battery is connected to an engine.
Anyone else have this concern? And do anything about it?

 

[HDGWJOE]

If you do a search on this topic you should bring up a number of threads. Some guys even posted their wiring diagrams after rewiring a house bank. The 330 isn't unique... all of the 4 battery Grady's are wired the same way and most owners have complained about not having a dedicated house bank. I've had my Marlin since 8/2005 and I am just now starting to replace my original batteries... but only to be safe... they still take a full charge and I've never had a starting problem even after anchoring out for 2 or 3 nights... but I will run the motors periodically when anchored to get the charge back up.

 

[Fish Tank]

Set up something (if you have the room) where the genset has it's own battery. Even if you run down the start batteries, fire up the genset and drop a line. Only once have I had to run the genset to charge the start batteries and thats after a few days at anchor with lots of 12v load (454's need a good amout of battery to get them going).

 

[Jeff Mauro]

The Battery configuration as you stated is correct. Given that you are carrying 4 good baterries you never have a problem. You would not use the windlass or thruster unless the engines were running. This leaves the port engines batteries 100% ready for starting only. Once port is started, you can configure battery switches to start SB engine if you ran the (house) batteries dowm. During the boating season i have a have a portable jumper on board my 330 as a fail safe. I stow it under the min-berth. Here is an example http://cgi.ebay.com/Car-500-amp-Battery ... 2561d01a4e Plug it in after use or every six months to keep a full charge. This one even has a inflator should you need one.

 

[HMBJack]

Thank-you. I'll do some more research on this. If I didn't have the genset, I'd be more worried.