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lv-ab: Battery Charging: How Charge Large House Bank?

From: Jones, Ron (no email)
Date: Thu Aug 19 1999 - 14:01:46 EDT

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    I sure could use some advice on how to set up the charging system for my
    proposed battery house bank.

    I am planning to install a 1300 amp-hour bank (12 6-volt golf carts) in
    addition to my three starting batteries. With them I will have a Heart
    3000-watt inverter and a Link 2000R. The inverter has a built-in 140-amp
    charger, but the conventional formula (as I understand it) says I should
    have at least 435 amps of charging power: (1300*25%) + about 25 amps for
    existing load + 25% reserve. My question is, how do I get close, or at
    least closer, to that?

    We would like to be able to use just the genset (Kohler 12.5 KW with Perkins
    4-108) to charge the batteries when we are at anchor, which is most of the
    time. The propulsion engines are Lehman 120's with the 70-amp Motorola
    alternators.

    I had hoped to mount a Balmar 150- to 210-amp alternator on the genset, but
    Perkins tells me that the three-bearing crankshaft absolutely will not
    handle the strain of a dual-belt alternator. This would limit me to about a
    100-amp alternator, which is a little small. There also is a problem in
    figuring how to mount any alternator on the genset, which currently does not
    have one. It would have to go on the port side and I would have to have a
    bracket custom made plus do some modifications to existing plumbing, etc.

    Both Kohler and Perkins suggested that I just add another charger to run off
    the genset. The largest charger I have found so far is an 80-amp Promariner
    for $758. I suppose I could just add another 3000-watt inverter to get the
    140-amp charger that is built in (can't buy it separately I'm told) for a
    cost of about $1300 from Defender, but for some reason it seems a little
    silly to me to have two inverters, plus Heart tells me there are some wiring
    issues to be careful about.

    Another option is to put a large alternator on one of the Lehmans and run
    both the engine and the genset at the same time, but that just seems to be a
    waste of fuel plus additional noise, etc. Running the genset by itself for
    long periods of time with just the 140-amp charger also seems like a lot of
    wasted fuel and more noise.

    Certainly would appreciate your thoughts and advice.

    Thanks.

    Ron Jones
    m/v Bilbo Baggins
    DeFever 49 PH
    St. Pete, Fla.
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