Small boat battery setup

My group 24 starting battery died a couple of days ago and I went with a 27 just because there was room for it and it gives me a little insurance. Dorado Escalante-Class Member.

I would think if you are not having issues with the 24 starting battery, I would just stick with that. I have the same, and have only had problems when I left the ignition on, and drained the battery, AND had the onboard charger come unplugged over a long period of storage.

While it is true that the 27 would give more oomph, if you have not needed it, it seems like overkill. There was an interesting article in sportfishing magazine about boats and maintenance. One thing they pointed out, is that as you own the boat, you keep adding stuff to it. Over time, your boat will grow much heavier than when you bought it!

Something to think about GTH Active Member. Just a thought, we use a size 24 battery, never have had a problem but we also carry jumper cables so we could jump from the TM batteries if we had to.

BarzArz Well-Known Member. Preston, I think you will enjoy having the graph on the bow as well. Good luck with it. This includes two 7" fishfinders, livewell, marine radio, manual bilge and phone charging. We have run the onboard electronics for a full day of fishing many times without it impacting the starting ability. This is in smaller local lakes where the big outboard was not fired up much during the day, so no charging.

Although I have a generator and try and charge all batteries each evening to maximize life, we have powered the on-board electronics for up to three days of general casual fishing activity without impacts to starting ability. Regarding our newer deep V Crestliner, also a group 24 "house" battery again Optima Dual Purpose D34 and separate group 24 starting battery, with an isolator between the two see picture below , so effectively a single group 24 powering all onboard electronic, again including two fishfinders, marine radio, occasional livewell recirculation, automatic bilge pump and phone charging has never compromised our starting Knock on wood Note: the fishfinder at the helm never gets turned off while on the water except when tied up at shore and the fishfinder on the bow rarely gets turned off, even if the trolling motor in not deployed, unless we are going a good ways without anticipating deploying it.

That has been our experience, hope that helps. If your battery is a good battery and well maintained, it should be pretty uneventful, other than leaving a larger draw or long term draw on bilge, ignition, lights, live well, etc. In any case, this is a great argument for the peace of mind provided by the two battery system with an isolator. Also carrying of jumper cables if you have trolling motor batteries accessible or carrying one of the small lithium jump packs.

JPG You can also turn devices on or off, as well as change their settings. Power consumption will vary from boat to boat and from owner to owner, even on small boats.

Here are two examples - with a normal and a heavier daily energy consumption - of what an Optimal Energy plan for a small boat could look like. Please note that many more factors come into play when designing and installing your optimal solution: your Victron Professional will gladly help you with that. To see this detailed table and the entire section properly, consider using a modern browser. Our well established global network of local Victron Professionals is dedicated to help find an optimal solution for your challenge.

At Victron we find it essential that customers are serviced and supported quickly and competently. This is why our global network of Victron Professionals pack the highest level of technical know-how and are committed to deliver repairs as fast as possible. See all products. Energy access and PAYGo. Select your language. Small boat. Consumption How much do you need? Read more Read more. Example 1 The lights may use W an hour, but are only used 4 hours a day.

Conversion The inverter should be sized to handle the average load continuously and should match the expected peak power current, which our inverters handle very well on average 2 x their continuous current. Generation Where does the power come from? First, there is shore power in the marina. Or - if you take your boat home on a trailer - you hook it up in the garage. Sources of power Battery charger. Power profile Normal and heavier power profiles in kWh, based on the daily energy consumption, which should be in balance with the generation.

House battery: Lead-Acid Lithium. AC devices Devices you bring on board usually need an AC outlet. Think of: Phone charger Laptop Drone batteries. Battery Monitor A battery monitor is like a "fuel gauge" for your battery. Search titles only. Search Advanced search…. New posts.

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You should upgrade or use an alternative browser. Is this a good four battery set up? Joined Jun 10, Messages Here is the setup I am thinking of for my 19ft Bay boat. Basically a four battery setup: 1 cranking battery for starting, 2 deep cycles for the 24volt trolling motor, and 1 deep cycle for the "house" battery. The red lines represent the wires connecting the components to the batteries. The purple lines represent the batteries connected to the on board charger. I have a few questions Should I use a 3 or 4 bank charger?

You should use marine grade primary wire for this. This is sometimes a long wiring run on a boat. Plus these two conductors will carry the current of all your electrical loads combined, so they are typically fairly beefy cables.

Prevent voltage drop by using larger cable. The power cables will be run to your New Wire Marine custom marine switch panel and your tinned marine negative bus bar. The main house battery positive conductor will feed directly into the new switch panel.

Example negative bus bar. They asked the right questions and provided great solutions! This is meant to land on a terminal block like this one. Each switch output gets its own gang on the terminal block, and with the labels right there it makes a handy breakout point for troubleshooting or adding items down the road.

This is how one of our fully wired switch panels would interface with a terminal block. From here the rest of the wiring is straightforward. Just hookup your existing boat wiring infrastructure to the terminal block and buss bar. Positives to the terminal block, and negative to the bus bar. Most are terminated with standard 8 ring terminals. The positives of course must be installed on the correct gang associated with the respective switch for that load.