I had a 1978 C&C 34 on which I installed a Blue Sea system switch to control an extra engine-dedicated battery (while leaving the old 1-2-all switch in place for the house bank). I also installed Lewmar opening ports. Is your boat green by any chance?
-----Original Message----- From: Floersch.net via CnC-List <cnc-list@cnc-list.com> Sent: Friday, June 20, 2025 11:57 PM To: Stus-List <cnc-list@cnc-list.com> Cc: Floersch.net <n...@floersch.net> Subject: Stus-List Alternator Question Hi folks! Our CNC ’34 from 1978 … has an Atomic 4 engine. Last summer we finally installed solar panels! What a relief! Before that the only way the battery charged was via the alternator. Now our battery is always (basically) getting charged… even if we do not use the boat for a week. Cool. So the question is this… the previous owner told us that we MUST turn on these "various switches" to enable the alternator charger system prior to using the engine. The vague statement was along the lines of “if you do not flip on the switches, then the alternator won’t charge the batteries, and ‘it’ will burn out.” We are not sure what “it” is or if this makes any sense. I can understand, kinda, if the alternator is generating electricity and has no sink to dump it into… maybe that is bad. But a battery is not an unlimited sink for the energy, so I can’t imagine how flipping the switches saves from burn-out of some component. Does anyone else have some sort of switch or set of switches that must be turned on before you start the motor to make sure your alternator is happy? Or did we misunderstand the previous owner? (Yes I realize there is a lot f vagueness to this… but perhaps it will make sense to someone, so I’m putting it out there to see what you throw back at me :) Nick in Vermont Your contributions help pay the fees associated with this list and help to keep it active. Please help by making a small contribution using PayPal at: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/stumurray All contributions are greatly appreciated. Your contributions help pay the fees associated with this list and help to keep it active. Please help by making a small contribution using PayPal at: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/stumurray All contributions are greatly appreciated.
