Carver Owners Forum

So here's what I'm going to do.
I have 3, AGM, group 31 batteries. 2 for the house and 1 for the genset. Not sure why anyone would use a group 31, AGM for the genset.
Anyway, 1 house is dead. I'm going to use the genset battery for the dead one and get a new starting battery for the genset. Maybe, I still have a couple years on the 2 good ones.

Sounds like a plan......if you have the manual for the gen and want to read something humorous ...check out the spec for the required CCA for the gen engine..hint its lower than you might think....

Buster, as viper mentioned, the charger should have settings for agm or flooded batteries. Either or but not both. You may want to have all three of the same type.
I would also consider a load test on the two good ones (free at most any battery retailer). If they don't pass, go to flooded for all three.

Viper wrote:Qr Bbpost

Midnightsun wrote:Qr Bbpost Flooded is the best IMHO. I paid dearly for an all AGM house bank several years back, after 2 years they hardly kept a charge. The place where I purchased them from replaced them with new wet cell (flooded) batteries not even blinking an eye or any questions asked which says a lot. IMHO, AGM is not well suited for a house bank unless you plunk down thousands on a rolls brand. Tried and true flooded will last at least 5 years and are the cheapest out there.

BINGO!
You can't beat the value of the regular flooded batteries. If the AGMs lasted 2-3 times longer than a typical flooded battery then they'd be worth it but I haven't found that to be the case yet with current technology.

Dang it. I was all set to go with AGM’s. May still go with them with the firefly 3 4 volt setup. Seems like the smallest amount of space for 400 amp hours. Real dilemma. May punt and get a local abc electrician come tell me what he will charge me. I am sure he has seen a lot of configurations. If I had more space I could just add wetcells til I had enough.

buster53 wrote:Qr Bbpost So here's what I'm going to do.
I have 3, AGM, group 31 batteries. 2 for the house and 1 for the genset. Not sure why anyone would use a group 31, AGM for the genset.
Anyway, 1 house is dead. I'm going to use the genset battery for the dead one and get a new starting battery for the genset. Maybe, I still have a couple years on the 2 good ones.

Good to hear you located the problem!

My detectors seem to be self powered, and independant throughout the boat (a 45 Californian) Does anyone know if these came hard wired?

tomschauer wrote:Buster, as viper mentioned, the charger should have settings for agm or flooded batteries. Either or but not both. You may want to have all three of the same type.
I would also consider a load test on the two good ones (free at most any battery retailer). If they don't pass, go to flooded for all three.

As suggested, I will confirm my charger setup before doing anything. I would love to buy just one new starting battery for the genset, but it sounds like I either buy one new AGM or 3 new flooded batteries. If I must, I'm leaning towards the 3 new flooded batteries and putting my 2 good AGM's on Craigslist.

So since you have considered just replacing the gen start....sure why not.....just don't connect the charger to it.....the gen will charge its own battery and in awhile when you replace the AGM's with flooded then you could reconnect the charger if that is something needed....For what its worth I powered up my gen with a utility battery all last year with no problems at all.........

To add.....maybe when comes time to go to the flooded maybe consider a nicely sized house bank separate from the engine start etc......its easy for us to spend your money heh....

bud37 wrote:Qr Bbpost So since you have considered just replacing the gen start....sure why not.....just don't connect the charger to it.....the gen will charge its own battery and in awhile when you replace the AGM's with flooded then you could reconnect the charger if that is something needed....For what its worth I powered up my gen with a utility battery all last year with no problems at all.........

I like this suggestion. I also don't understand why folks use a group 31 for a genset. Those motors are what, like 30hp?? Can't be much to start that thing and still have plenty of reserve left over.

You could also get a low-cost marine charger (5A or less) and wire it to the genset. That's an additional redundancy so you always have the genset isolated from all the other electrical so you can start it to power the big charger that feeds everything else.