gathering info for boat show question 1. Amps?

[ferroboat]

I am trying to work out how many amps the equipment on our yacht draws prior going to the LBS. Unfortunately I do not have all the manuals to see how many amps each piece of kit draws. Could somebody please come up with a ball park figure. The equipment is:
a Webasto 5kw heating system
an autohelm ST7000 autopilot
Garman 4012 Chart Plotter
Garman radar
AIS
VHF radio
Speed & distance log
Depth sounder
Nav lights (non LED)
I think I will need the total ampage draw as I want to change (upgrade) the domestic battery system currently 24v made up of 4 6v 220 amp hour batteries and investigate fitting solar panels.

I thank you in advance for any advice or tips you can give me.

 

[nickd]

It ought to be a simple job of googling your make and models
for instance
http://www.raymarine.com/SubmittedF...ks/Autopilot/ST7000_installation_handbook.pdf
will give you all the info on your autohelm, however i do not think anyone can give you a ball park without knowing exact makes and models
eg there would appear to be 7 different drive units for the st7000 ranging from 1.5 min to 8 amps max

 

[VicS]

You should be able to find instruction manuals for most of those items on line which will contain the info

Nav lights need defining in terms of watts and the amps calculated from them.

Some of the electronics will heve very small current consumptions
VHF will be low on stanby but significant on transmit

Autopilot will draw much more while actually operating than it does while not but the manual should give a typical or average figure.

More relevant than the total of all these in amps I would have thought would be to multiply the current drawn by each by the number of hours of operation in a typical day to arrive at Ah figures and total them to give a total Ah consumption per day.

Use that to size the battery bank and the charging requirement.

 

[Billjratt]

Why not measure it?
Every boat should have a reasonable digital multimeter aboard these days.

 

[jordanbasset]

Also need to factor in interior lights (L.E.D's?), I assume you don't have a fridge, do you use a computer?

 

[ianj99]

I am trying to work out how many amps the equipment on our yacht draws prior going to the LBS. Unfortunately I do not have all the manuals to see how many amps each piece of kit draws. Could somebody please come up with a ball park figure. The equipment is:
a Webasto 5kw heating system
an autohelm ST7000 autopilot
Garman 4012 Chart Plotter
Garman radar
AIS
VHF radio
Speed & distance log
Depth sounder
Nav lights (non LED)
I think I will need the total ampage draw as I want to change (upgrade) the domestic battery system currently 24v made up of 4 6v 220 amp hour batteries and investigate fitting solar panels.

I thank you in advance for any advice or tips you can give me.

As VicS hinted at, the charging system needs to be upto the job of charging the higher capacity battery bank so that is of equal importance as a battery upgrade.

If you don't want to work out the current then look at it from the other angle.
How long does the existing battery bank last currently?
So if you wanted to double the duration then double the capacity (and the charging capacity or it will take more than twice as long to recharge it)

Or if the existing batteries are old and tired, they will not have maintained their capacity so replacing like for like may be all you need to do.

 

[vyv_cox]

a Webasto 5kw heating system - about 3 amps running but up to 25 amps on startup
an autohelm ST7000 autopilot - don't know
Garmin 4012 Chart Plotter - My 2010 consumes less than 1 amp
Garmin radar - less than 1 amp on standby
AIS - very little, 0.5 A?
VHF radio - 0.5 A
Speed & distance log - 0.2 A
Depth sounder - 0.2 A
Nav lights (non LED) - up to 5 A

As pointed out, it's the time that they are operated per day that's important. For this reason it is equipment that runs for long periods that discharge batteries the most, e.g refrigerator, saloon lights, audio system, video, even though some of these consume low currents.