"without having to run the engine or using a small generator or using shore power or relying on PV cells." Hello again Skip, The question is not about spare alternators because the engine is shutdown after the bulk charge.
The power plant (the main engine) is used periodically (maybe daily) to perform bulk/absorption battery charging concurrently with maybe cold plate cooling etc. The intent here is to use the engine at near full load and convert the energy in your fuel tank as efficiently as possible to useful work. The daily energy taken from the batteries can be put back to the batteries with a "short" runtime of the engine. Any solar, wind, or water derived power generation would further reduce the time necessary to run the engine. The problem statement : After a bulk charge, the batteries require a slow tapering charge for a long period (ie: typical 6 hours) to complete restoration to their fully charged chemical state. It is said that batteries reach their end of life prematurely if they do not reach a fully charged state periodically during their operation. I ask again in a different way : How many cruisers would be interested in a device that can take the energy from a 15 minute operation of their engine at full load (120A alternator) to stretch the charging process over eight hours after shutting down the engine? The value added by this device would be in two areas. 1. The batteries will reach a fully charged chemical state thus prolong their life. 2. The conversion efficiency during the eight hours of charging will be several orders of maginitude better than running the engine at light load for eight hours. Fair winds SV8827 Ahmet From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 13:11:04 -0400 Subject: [Liveaboard] spare alternators at any price (was) Re: Equalizing Hi Skip, I think it is possible to top off the batteries after every bulk charge without having to run the engine or using a small generator or using shore power or relying on PV cells. The question is would the same people who pay $300 for a Balmar regulator pay $300 for the product performing this function? I know you don't need it, but would you buy it as a back-up? Fair winds. Ahmet Nope. I have three spare alternators at 90A and the one I have mounted at 120 :{)) L8R Skip Morgan 461 #2 SV Flying Pig KI4MPC See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery ! Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog "Believe me, my young friend, there is *nothing*-absolutely nothing-half so much worth doing as simply messing, messing-about-in-boats; messing about in boats-or *with* boats. In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not." _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
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