Baffling Bavaria Battery Bumph.

[FrankieJ]

We have a share in a Bavaria 42 and have had conflicting information on what is a safe discharge level for the domestic battery bank. I have been told not to let it go below 10 volts on the meter reading. Another tells me not below 12 volts.
Can anyone tell me what it should be please.

 

[Vara]

12

 

[tyce]

11.2 volts means the battery is dead

 

[gettingready]

See the graph here

Unless you know that you have traction or other deep discharge type batteries then assume you should not discharge deeper than 50%. This will then give you a rough voltage of 12V as an absolute minimum before you should recharge. You should measure the battery voltage off load so turn off any heavy loads when checking the battery voltage.

Hope this help

 

[steve_cronin]

At 12.0 I would be looking around to urgently get some charge into the batteries on my Bav 42.

We rarely if at all get that low for as dawn arrives our 2X55watt solar panels (Greece) start charging again. Also at that level Mr Sterling's clever battery/charging monitor sets off an alarm to warn us. The following morning our smart alternator charge controller puts up on the screen of the monitor the engine time needed to reach full charge. This combination keeps the batteries healthy and us fully informed. I would recommend it.

The standard batteries on the B42 are 2X 130s which are really a bit small. 165s will fit in place as they are the same size. It's that blessed fridge that is the culprit.

If you are also in the Med and use your windlass a lot then I would also recommend swapping it's supply from the domestic battery to the starter. This requires a 1.40metre length of 50sq mm battery cable to connect the windlass fuse bottom terminal (behind the saloon cushions above the batteries) to the starter battery positive having first removed the short link between the bottom terminals of the two fusesholders. As a precaution, a parallelling switch between the domestic and starter positives is recommended should your over use of the windlass when mooring up in the evening result in not having sufficient power to start the engine. However this is unlikely as even if you do roll out the chain with power rather than using the clutch, the load is far lighter than that when recovering the hook.

If you have the original Bosch batteries they will last a long time if looked after properly and kept charged and topped up.

Syndicates are a bit of a problem as there will be some dynosaur who will want to resist any improvements which the rest want to implement.

Steve cronin

 

[cliff]

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"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity"
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