My batteries are not getting charged from the engine. After starting the engine and running for a while, my engine start battery registered 12.4 V (and trended lower) and the house bank about 12.8 at the VDO panel meter. My alternator seemed to be putting out okay (I measured 13.1 V at cruising rpm) at the connection to the "battery isolator" which is a small electrical box located behind the house battery box that is under the sitting area in the aft cabin. This battery isolator also has connections to the house bank and the engine battery. The voltages of the engine battery terminal at the isolator showed a drop of about 0.6V relative to the alternator terminal at the isolator, which indicated the engine battery was not connected to the alternator.
Once I shut down the engine and switch on the shore power charger, the batteries all charge up nicely to 13.3 V, so I don't think the problem is with the batteries themselves.
My question is, has anyone experienced this problem? Is 13V output of the alternator normal, or should it be higher? Sould I see the same voltage at the engine battery as the alternator output (13.1 V), if not does that indicate a problem with the battery isolator?
Any advice from the esteemed group is welcomed.
Thanks,
Pieter Wybro
B40 hull #144
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You have to be carefull charging dead or severely depleated batteries by running the engine/alternator. With the new alternators, with the regulator built in, they are not real big and will blow out quickly. I've found that you can install an older, external regulator that's built much stronger and will take the current better. I installed a new Delco marinized alternator with the small internal regulator and tried to charge low batteries. Didn't work. The repair tech explained what happened. That's why you need to charge up your batteries first or have something like a shore powered charger or even a solar charger hooked up to keep them topped off.
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