Breaker panel and battery

[iamarookie]

Two questions,
1. When leaving the dock I leave my 120 panel on powering my fridge and I shut the batteries off. Is this the correct thing to do?
2. When I am at the dock I have to turn a battery on to use the deck lights, water pump and radio. Does the shore power charge the batteries while plugged in?

Thanks.

 

[mwph]

1. While away fom shore power, only a generator or your onboard batteries will run the fridge.

2. Your boat is probably equiped with a "smart charger", which, when plugged up to shore & wired correctly, is designd to keep your bateries charged.

 

[electricaldoctor]

Two questions,
1. When leaving the dock I leave my 120 panel on powering my fridge and I shut the batteries off. Is this the correct thing to do?
2. When I am at the dock I have to turn a battery on to use the deck lights, water pump and radio. Does the shore power charge the batteries while plugged in?

Thanks.

Did you disconnect the shore power cord? If not, you will only have 120 volts to the fridge for a very short period of time. :grin: Then your batteries should take over.

 

[iamarookie]

Sorry I worded the first question wrong. I mean when I leave the dock to go home for the day not leaving with the boat.

How long will a battery run say the radio while anchored? I normally have both batteries on while running and then switch to one when anchored. I do not have a generator.

 

[mwph]

Well that clears things up a bit. You are doing the right thing by leaving the panel & fridge switch on while you are away from the boat. It is not necessry to switch the batteries to off if you ae plugged in and corectly wired.

As far as the radio time. I cant be too specific (others may choose to) but it depends on the age & condition of your batteries. As a side note, I'll switch to battery #1 during one outing & use battery #2 on the next.

 

[HUMPH]

Don't forget to leave the breaker fo rthe inverter/charger on or else your batteries will not charge.

 

[iamarookie]

Great information all thank you. I have an AC converter breaker on my 120 panel, can anyone tell me what that is for?

 

[Creekwood]

A related thread hijack question:

On my boat there is a refrigerator switch on both the 120 panel and a separate one on the 12V panel. When I leave the boat, I leave both switches on. I believe that the fridge is 120/12 and will auto switch to battery if the 120 Power goes out. My thought there is that if the power is out for say 8 hours some day when I am not there, at least the fridge will stay cool until it comes back on.

I guess if the power went out for long period, there would be a risk that the fridge would drain the batteries fully, but since I have 2 golf cart batteries in series as the house bank, I think that is about 2 days plus of run time.