Heart Interface Inverter/Charger

I have a 1000 Watt Heart Inverter on my boat and for the past few years it has worked reasonably well.. This weekend I spend 5 days on the hook and it just did not seem to survive very long before it required recharging. I have a 1000W generator that I think was having some issues on top of all this, so I ended up having to run the motor to charge the batteries of the inverter. Aside for several periods of 20 minutes on the alternator proabably not being satifactory to fully recharge the batteries, I'm thinking that maybe I need new batteries. (These batterise were in the boat when I bought it 41/2 years ago. The boat is a 1990 and I suspect the inverter is an add-on to the boat...)

The Batteries for the inverter are a pair of 6v in series. these are seperate from my starting and house batteries. I will be removing them and having them load tested, and if they need to be replaced, what is the best way to go? Should I go with 2 6v in series, or 2 12v in parrallel? What about group type, or deep cycle ratings.. any suggestions on a good setup?

Please advise.
Paul

Re: Heart Interface Inverter/Charger

Might want to take a look through here, pretty informative:http://www.boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/marine_battery.htm

Re: Heart Interface Inverter/Charger

Stick with the 6v, "golf cart" batteries if they need to be replaced - they are correct for an inverter application. If you need more battery capacity and you have the space, you could always add a second pair and parallel them with the first pair.

5 days is an awful lot to ask of those batteries with only short periods of charging. The ideal situation would be to periodically run the generator for a few hours and let the inverter's charger maintain the batteries (which you obviously couldn't do in this case).

Also, keep in mind that an appliance that draws 5 or 10 amps on 120v is going to draw 50 or 100 amps on 12v, so be judicious about what appliances you use - anything with a heating element or an AC motor will drain a set of inverter batteries surprisingly quickly.

In any case, have the batteries charged, load tested, and the cells tested with a battery hydrometer, and if they need to be replaced, after 5 years I wouldn't feel too bad about it.

Good Luck!

Re: Heart Interface Inverter/Charger

Thanks for the advise... I'm going to try to "equalize" the batteries first.. after reading the Heart/Freedom doc's and FAQ's, it might help, I've never done it.... if they dont then load test, I'm going with the 6v Golf Cart batts...

Thanks.
Paul