420/44 DB Owners Club

I can't wait to get a bigger boat. I think we've covered all the scenarios in this thread...except Mike's naked survival plan and why can't a Honda Genny just run in a diesel engine bay to keep the batts charged.
 
Todd,

It's a big boat. We pretty much covered the geny usage, but there's a lot more to cover than that. I don't know about other folks but I got gread deal of things to learn about my new rig and diesels in general.
 
I read on another forum that someone got 20,000 hours out of a diesel genny. I'll definitely be dead before I put that many hours on a gen. I say we have a competition... who can run their gen the longest non stop. I'm up for it, I'm calculating around 20 days non stop on full tanks. Winner gets fuel paid for.
 
I heard a rumor that someone in this thread told someone else to go f' himself and some f'ing moderator deleted it. Is this true? Man... I love a good food fight...
 
That's a load of malarky.
 
Don't get me involved in this. My 22 year old generator has 230 hours. Driven to church on Sundays by a little old lady.
 
Ron doubled down based on his low hours.
 
Hey, I went for a boatride yesterday and ran the generator the whole time. Now I have about 232 hours. Catching up to you guys.
 
I bet you had one in your old 390 gasser and I bet you ran it!
 
Nope......I had an Onan and I did run it. If I remember correctly, it had 2300 hours on it when I sold the boat. In 9 years, I tuned it once, 1 set of plugs, and replaced on fuel pump and several impellers. It was loud enough to wake the dead, but I wish everything I owned was a trouble free as that old beast was.
 
Put on 120 hours in the last 2 weeks, 100 in the last 4 days (4 1/2).
 
Here's another thing that I may need to change the way I go about it on my 420. In my previous boats I always turned OFF the batteries switches when leaving the boat for a week. This way I ensure that in the unlikelly event of marina loosing power and the battery charger is no longer provides constant charge I don't have anything that would draw the 12v juice, except for the vital components like bilge pumps.

My 420 has upgraded cockpit fridge that is 12/24v (not a dual 12dc/110ac), so everytime I turn the batteries OFF I automatically cut the juice to the cockpit fridge. I never had this issue with my 320 as I installed dual voltage fridge. So, in the meantime, I continue turning off the batteries and empty the fridge or leave only things that won't get spoiled (water, beer, etc.). I guess another alternative would be to leave the bateries switch ON only for the port side (where the fridge is hooked up).


How you guys do it, do you leave your batteries turned ON and let the house "RUN" or do you turn the batteries OFF to make sure 110ac power lose won't result in killing your batteries?
 
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Battery solenoids (on the main panel in the salon) off when leaving the boat. My fridges are both 12/110 though.
 
I leave my batteries on all the time. I am not saying that it is the right thing to do, just what we do. We go out a lot at night and it is nice to be able to just hit the switch while you are still on the swim platform and have the lights come on. It is also nice when leaving at night to leave them on until you step off.

I do make sure that everything is turned off, and give a quick look at the DC current to verify that (have to keep just the AC lights in the salon on to do that).

With that said, we did have a battery charger go, and both of my batteries went flat. I am not sure if the charger, killed them, or there was some other load. I have no leaks, so bilge pumps were not an issue, but if something broke it could have been ugly.

We also have pretty good power around here, judging from the ice cubes in the freezer.
 
Greg said:
With that said, we did have a battery charger go, and both of my batteries went flat. I am not sure if the charger, killed them, or there was some other load. I have no leaks, so bilge pumps were not an issue, but if something broke it could have been ugly.
Click to expand...

That's a bigger fear with me than my beer getting warm if the power goes out. Power in our marina almost never goes out and only briefly if so...
 
Alex F said:
Here's another thing that I may need to change the way I go about it on my 420. In my previous boats I always turned OFF the batteries switches when leaving the boat for a week. This way I ensure that in the unlikelly event of marina loosing power and the battery charger is no longer provides constant charge I don't have anything that would draw the 12v juice, except for the vital components like bilge pumps.

My 420 has upgraded cockpit fridge that is 12/24v (not a dual 12dc/110ac), so everytime I turn the batteries OFF I automatically cut the juice to the cockpit fridge. I never had this issue with my 320 as I installed dual voltage fridge. So, in the meantime, I continue turning off the batteries and empty the fridge or leave only things that won't get spoiled (water, beer, etc.). I guess another alternative would be to leave the bateries switch ON only for the port side (where the fridge is hooked up).


How you guys do it, do you leave your batteries turned ON and let the house "RUN" or do you turn the batteries OFF to make sure 110ac power lose won't result in killing your batteries?
Click to expand...

Alex

To avoid any of the beer going bad I stay on the boat until it's all gone!!! Ok, seriously, sometimes I actually leave beer in the cockpit fridge (12V/120V). I always leave the 3 battery switches on while away from the boat, as previously stated, so that I have lights until I'm off the boat. Personal preference I guess but I've never had a problem. I just replaced my batteries after 5 seasons. Only one bank was bad though.
 
I turn my batteries off when leaving and also turn off the charger so I am not killing the batteries all week while not on board. There is hardly any battery load when they are off (emergency bilge pumps maybe) so why keep a charger going full time? I keep a small led flashlight at the door if it's too dark to see when I come in to turn the battery switches back on.
 
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