Electrical questions

[Txbillyed]

I am in the process of restoring a 1980 Lund 18" aluminum boat and need to rewire the whole boat. My question is can I put a battery A-B switch on my house battery. My thinking is if the house battery goes down, then I could switch over to the other battery to pick up my house electric load which would be my electronics and other lighting. Comments?

 

[alldodge]

I'm misunderstanding your comment or its not worded correctly. A boat would have a start and a house bat. The house bat is used for accessories and the start is used for the motor. If the start bat is low you can use a bat switch to combine the bats to crank over the motor.

If your Lund has an outboard then no need to try and let the motor charge the house bat, just wait until it can be plugged into a bat charger

 

[poconojoe]

If your house battery is low, I don't think you want to switch to your start battery and risk discharging it just to enjoy luxuries. Obviously, if you discharge your start battery too, that could easily become a life threatening situation.
The opposite would be OK as ALLDODGE suggested. If your start battery became discharged, you can switch to your house battery or combine both batteries to get you home.

 

[dingbat]

Tillers tend to have very little charging capacity, but it would be foolish not to take advantage of the charging capabilities of a larger outboard.

The 35 amp output of my motor combined with an ACR is more than enough to keep both batteries charged to the point that I rarely need to put a charger either battery.

 

[Txbillyed]

Great thanks. Got the answer I needed.