340 dancer - how long should batteries last on the hook?

Has anyone ever taken the panel cover off of the main breaker panel in the ER? I am contemplating it with shore unplugged and all batteries disconnected just to see what in the heck is going on in there. Maybe it's as straight forward as re-arranging some of the 12v circuits that head to the cabin panel to "make" a house side?
 
Run 3 group 31s. 3 on stbd and 2 on port. Have gone 3 days and 2 nights with out an issue. Did find one bad battery in my stbd bank this spring when that engine was starting sluggish - so replaced all 3. If you have 1 battery in a bank that is bad, it will kill the rest of them. I have one of the above testers as well and usually load test my batteries 2 or 3 times a season to try n catch one going bad early so as not to have an issue.
 
Has anyone ever taken the panel cover off of the main breaker panel in the ER? I am contemplating it with shore unplugged and all batteries disconnected just to see what in the heck is going on in there. Maybe it's as straight forward as re-arranging some of the 12v circuits that head to the cabin panel to "make" a house side?

On my 97 330 the power feed for the 12v house circuits comes from a large positive feed behind one of the battery switches and goes to the back of the 12v panel. My boat does not have a gennie so the OEM setup was the house fed from the starboard engine bank batteries under the cockpit seat. By shifting the house feed wire to behind the port battery switch I shifted the house feed to that side. The port side batteries are in the bilge and I changed them to 2 6v golf cart deep cycles to get better performance on the hook. Only downside is that they have less cranking amps so after a weekend the port side engine turns over slower. Never had to use the emerg bridging switch though. I easily get a 2 plus days on the hook and I don’t turn off my fridge (Nova Kool).
 
Are you guys running the AC while on the hook WITHOUT the gennie? Living in South Florida summers are a biatch and you can't go without AC.
 
Are you guys running the AC while on the hook WITHOUT the gennie? Living in South Florida summers are a biatch and you can't go without AC.

I assume you mean via an inverter? That would run your batteries down in a Florida minute, assuming your batteries and inverter were big enough to even start the compressor.
 
Thats what Im getting at. You guys aren't running the AC absent the gen.
 
Thats what Im getting at. You guys aren't running the AC absent the gen.

Well full disclosure, I have a gen so it isn't an issue for me. That said, when I was shopping around and researching I came to the conclusion that a gen would be required if I wanted to run AC.
 
Well full disclosure, I have a gen so it isn't an issue for me. That said, when I was shopping around and researching I came to the conclusion that a gen would be required if I wanted to run AC.
We have a gen as well but maybe I misunderstood the conversation. I though folks were on the hook, on battery power, running the AC. My bad.
 
Here’s what I learned today about my ‘04 340. Love it or leave it, no science here other than to turn stuff on and off and see what stops working:

Port battery engaged from the cabin runs:
House lights (LED)s, fridges, water pump, cockpit amp, head, and starts port engine

Stbd battery engaged from the cabin runs:
Helm EIM buttons, Nav lights, Blowers, hatch lift, Stereo + stereo cockpit amp, stbd engine starter

I’m sure there’s other critical systems (aka bilge pumps) that are direct wired - I didn’t get into that. I’m trying to keep the batteries from dying that SUPPLIES those systems in the first place.

With generator running and both port and stbd battery solenoids off - generator still runs. The solenoid must be tapping into one of the port batteries to keep that running.

With fridges on 12v ONLY and port battery (stbd off) - 2amp draw (cockpit and cabin fridge)l. Reads 13.4v on the analog cabin meter for the port motor.

When I was a dead ship, the generator would only click (somehow tied to port), but I could raise the hatch (tied to stbd). Not enough juice to emergency button start a single engine. But the full charged jump pack on the port bank got things going for the gen.

Hindsight:
I have dual purpose bats on the stbd side. “Cranking” on the port side. I’m going to swap the DP batts to the port side (“house/fridge”) and the cranking to the other side. I still have no clue how the gen ties into all this behind the black magic “Sea Ray” panel in the ER. I think all I’m getting is a relay that connects the gen starter to the same bank of batteries on the port side, which is stupid because if they are dead what’s the purpose?

I did find that my battery charger has 3 outputs so maybe that is the leg to tie a “new” battery dedicated for the generator. I will have to sit down and finger that out because I will need to determine if the generator is charging it’s own battery (how if it doesn’t have a dedicated one????) or relying on an external source to charge the bank it depends on (the port parallel bank). That seems more reasonable since it is tied into the charger directly.

Interesting to say the least. I’ll map what I found above to the schematics and see if they line up.
 
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Thanks for posting Dale.

Ive been meaning to do the exact same thing. Guess it’s finally time. I’m wondering if there is a hot battery bus that cannot be disconnected?
 
Thanks for posting Dale.

Ive been meaning to do the exact same thing. Guess it’s finally time. I’m wondering if there is a hot battery bus that cannot be disconnected?
There should not be. The only hot, un-switched circuit should be to the bilge pumps. And maybe if an owner has wired and older stereo memory circuit direct to the batteries.
 
The only hot, un-switched circuit should be to the bilge pumps.

I think this is the case too. Without seeing inside the panel, I think it's acting as the main bus with the ability to disconnect (via solenoids) the batteries from the rest of the wiring. So the "out" side of the panel would be 0v when disconnected, but you'd still have a hot inbound. Its possible that the "hot inbound" could be that un-switched 12v that the bilge pumps connect to. That's just a total swag though.

On that ER panel, there are individual breakers but I don't have a good recall of what they are. My next adventure will most likely be to disconnect all batteries and shore power, then open up the panel and trace power.
 
I’m looking at my wiring diagrams for my boat and I’m having a hard time finding the “hot” items. I believe they are there but how much difference is there from boat to boat or factory in each model year.
 
My 2002 340, has 2 - 31s for port/house, and 1- 31 for starboard., (1- 27 starting for genny.)

cabin stuff, lights, fridges, head all on house.

nav lights, dash, and other crap on starboard (this is dumb of searay should lave one side nothing but motor to me.)


I can leave the dock at 10 am, and run anything I want including anchor light and head and water and all kinds of crap, all beers in fridges so they are opened a lot.. and it will fire in the morning no issues.
 
My 2002 340, has 2 - 31s for port/house, and 1- 31 for starboard., (1- 27 starting for genny.)

Do you know what kind the 2 -31 port/house are? I know for a fact that mine are cranking, instead of dual-purpose. I wonder if that's my problem? I was planning on scheduling a chiropractor appointment today for next week in anticipation of swapping around batteries tomorrow or Sunday.
 
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Yes all my 31s are DEKA group 31 deep cycle/duel.
 
Do you know what kind the 2 -31 port/house are? I know for a fact that mine are cranking, instead of dual-purpose. I wonder if that's my problem? I was planning on scheduling a chiropractor appointment today for next week in anticipation of swapping around batteries tomorrow or Sunday.

I have a similar configuration to Mittens on my '02 340DA. It came with 4 group 27 batteries, configured with 2 as house bank and port engine, 1 for starboard engine, 1 for genny. I have replaced all 4 with dual purpose Interstate Marine AGM's, Group 31. The part number is: 31M-AGM. https://www.interstatebatteries.com/products/31m-agm

Fwiw, the Interstates are more expensive than some I've seen, but they have a 3 year warranty, many others I looked at just have 1. I did have one replaced after 2 years under warranty, stuff happens. I had bought it through the dealer that does my winter maintenance, so they took care of getting it replaced for me. Great hang time on the hook with the Group 31's even with both fridges running. I don't think the beer fridge has ever been shut off in season :)
 
yes both my fridges run 100% of the time, at dock on power or on battery out and about/hook.
 

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