House Battery not enough for all the electronics today ?

[Pat Hurley]

Anyone have this issue on your Grady ? I'm most likely drawing to many amps with a TZ touch3 16" MFD with 1k sounder 2 VHF radios Raymarine 12' and 7' MDF's Auto pilot and furuno GP 32. my guess is we're pulling 25 amps. Ok while running however too much strain when at idle or motors off. Anyone split up the house load to other batteries ? I believe the other one is reserved for the windlass and bow thruster. Yamaha f250 puts out around 44 amps running and 10 at idle

 

[SkunkBoat]

I have 4 grp 24 batteries. One 24M for each motor and two 24DC in parallel for the House.
House is separated from start.
House charges from Aux charging cables from both motors.
I can run on House dusk to dawn two MFDs, VHF, Anchor light, LED Spreaders and UW LED light

 

[seasick]

You didn't say whether you are having issues, just that you are concerned about the draw on your battery. What is your battery setup? How many, how wired and what type/size.

If you are running house loads off of a starting battery and running that battery down, that can shorten the life of your battery

Instead of guessing you draw, a clamp on ammeter will give a better measurement.
If you want, you can spend the bucks and get a more sophisticated battery monitoring system. I think Boating magazine recently did a review of several such systems.

 

[blindmullet]

Just something to look at the next time you need batteries is to look at amp hours for your house battery. It's easier finding a good house battery in the 29/31 series. I have to go through this every few years for my little boat. Finding Optimax capable batteries is a PIA. A good house and a starting battery in the 1000mca range.

 

[Angler Management]

Pat, those Raymarine units do suck a lot of power... I have a good set on my 30 Grady and have set up the batteries in a way to maximize the available power to the house bank. I can't tell what boat you're running or how many batteries you have, but here's some tips I found helpful:

1- as mentioned, look for high amp hour batteries for house needs.
2- I have used voltage sensitive relays between starter and house, to keep my starting batteries isolated so they don't drain from my use of electronics, but the starter battery charging can add power to the house when in use. (I have a GRP 24 starting battery for each of my two engines, and two GRP 27 linked together as one battery for house... each start battery is connected to the house bank via VSR to isolate, yet charge house if voltage of either start bank goes above about 13V I can't remember the exact number...) I swap engines every two hours trolling, and it seems my alternators do a good job of keeping starters charged and power flowing to the house bank.
3- A little DC circuit breaker management while you're underway to assure your house isn't unnecessarily powering something you don't need. Washdown pumps, fridge, etc...
4- LED lights

 

[Hookup1]

I run 4 separate batteries (not paralleled) on my boat. When fishing I leave my engines running - that provides charging amperage even at idle. All Duracell AGM Marine batteries from Sam's Club. Great price and great battery.

Each engine has a Group 34M, main house battery is a Group 27M and second house battery is a Group 34M. Engine charging shunts from each engine each charge one of the house batteries.

I run a lot of things off the two house batteries without any low voltage problems. Two Garmin display, radar, radio, stereo w/amp and sub, bow thruster, windlass, lighting, two high capacity bait well pumps, electric reels ports.

 

[georgemjr]

I have 4 batteries on my 330, set up as Grady did from factory (2 banks of 2 batteries). All 4 are group 27. I just changed the two house bank batteries to deep cycle because of your exact issue. Prior to that they were starting batteries. The other two have the windlass and bow thruster connected and are starting batteries.

 

[Pat Hurley]

I have 4 batteries on my 330, set up as Grady did from factory (2 banks of 2 batteries). All 4 are group 27. I just changed the two house bank batteries to deep cycle because of your exact issue. Prior to that they were starting batteries. The other two have the windlass and bow thruster connected and are starting batteries.

Same deal here with the 4 group 27’s set up at factory. Had AGM’sand swapped them out for higher CCA Deka lead acid dual purpose. Working with my electronics guy and also my Yamaha tech. Will post up when we conjure up a solution

 

[wspitler]

I have four group 31 batteries on my 330. One bank of dual purpose, one bank of starting. Use dual purpose at night for deep cycle purposes and leave the starting batteries for back up. Don’t have any problems with capacity. All deka group 31.