Battery Isolator question:

[Cdn20valve]

New to me boat, has 2 mercruiser 5.7s and 4 battery banks.

starter bat 1
starter bat 2
generator bat
house bank (2 6 volt bats making 12v)

currently the boat has a 2 alt to 3 bank isolator for the alternator charging system. When the engine is running the house bank is not charging. It is not hooked up to the isolator. Can i swap the generator bat for the house bank on the isolator post with no ill effect?

The generator start bat would still get charged at shore power/or when the generator is running.

thanks.

Lou

 

[Chris1956]

You should research a wiring diagram for a system like yours. I expect it to be common, and you can see if your system is wired correctly. A 3 bank Isolator should charge 3 batteries, or 3 sets of batteries. Any batteries that share a charging bank, will tend to equalize in charge and load.

So you could have one battery for port engine, one battery for stb engine and a connection for the generator and house batteries (6V House batteries wired in series), connected to the isolator.

You could be fancy and put a battery switch between the house batteries and the generator start battery, so you can control it's charging manually, and protect against equalized load, if you want.

Does that get it?

 

[alldodge]

boat has a 2 alt to 3 bank isolator

I'll assume only 1 ALT powers the isolator. You normally wouldn't see 2 ALTs powering the same isolator, would be issues

If the Gen Bat not being charged has a connection to the isolator, the isolator may have a burned out diode on that leg

Can i swap the generator bat for the house bank on the isolator post with no ill effect?

Yes, this will not be an issue so long as it's on the 12V end of the 2 Bats

Most Gen setups when running will run the Bat charger when running

 

[Cdn20valve]

UPDATE:

I ended up installing two new Victron Isolators. One for each engine.

Starboard engine isolator --> Starboard engine, generator and house bank
Port engine isolator --> Port engine, house bank

All is well. everything works perfectly now.