I have two group 24s on my boat, I use one for starting the engine and the other as a house battery. When the house battery gets low I switch and use that with the engine to charge it up. Since I'm on a mooring I don't have access shore power very often, when I do I top off with the charger. For the most part, running a radio, the instruments when sailing and some lights at night on occasion I can usually get through a whole season charging the batteries for the few hours I run the engine without having to rent a slip for the night to charge up.
I also have a portable battery supply with a 200 watt inverter built in that works to charge up the computer, the cell phone and the handheld radios and it'll run the TV/DVD player for a good long movie. I can charge while running the engine as well or I just take that back home after a weekend on board and charge it up for the next weekend. Dave - charged C27 #5212 Windabout Cape Cod, MA http://dpbcc.home.comcast.net -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Oppenheimer Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 8:15 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: catalina27-talk: Batteries Some of the new Catalina's come with two different batteries, I was looking at one last month at our Catalina dealer here in Austin. It had a humongous house power and a group 24 or 27 starting battery. And still had the old "off, 1, all, 2" battery switch. You should be able to mix sizes all you want within the same technology. The two common technologies are flooded and SLAs. The charger should still work fine, it will just take longer to get to a full charge. It's all about amp hours. What you take out, you must put back in, plus the negative efficiency. But I'm going with number 4 ;-) I have no problem starting on one of the two batteries. I would think that a radio should not discharge the selected house battery within a reasonable day sail. John 1985 C27 5956 Cool Change Lake Travis, Austin, TX [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > To All: > I have a question about the batteries. Presently I have 2 - 24 Group > Battery (Brand New-Sears Marine batteries) set up. I was thinking > of putting those batteries on parallel on the #2 battery spot and > installing a 27 Group as a starting battery on the #1 spot. I want to > install a stereo system on the boat an I thought the twin 24 Group > batteries set up as a house battery would last longer. My thinking is, > I would be able to leave the stereo and the instruments on while sailing > without worrying that I am running down the batteries. I also figured > that the extra power that the 27 group battery would give me would make > starting easier. My questions: > 1. Is it a good idea to use 2- 24 and a 27 Group battery in the > same boat? > 2. Would the charging be effected or would there be too much of a > strain put on the alternator charging 2 - batteries together? > 3. Would my Blue Sea Digital Battery reader be able to read 2 > batteries set up in parralle? > 4. Am I crazy for even thinking about doing this????? > Thanks in advance.... > > Andy Eanniello > Slow"MO"tion, #6038 > !985 - Tall-Rig > Nyack, NY
