The top left battery is the starter battery, the top right battery is the newer house battery and the bottom battery has been removed.
Sundance has two house batteries, the older battery was gassing when being charged and was not holding a full charge and was removed. The newer battery was only a few years old but was showing problems with holding a full charge. It is believed that the older battery was damaging the newer battery. As the battery was of a general purpose type to act as a starter battery and a house battery, it is considered that this type of battery is not ideal to use as a house battery.
It was decided that a pair of new house batteries would be required to keep the domestic electric items going. One problem was the fridge kept on switching off while at anchor and some food was wasted which was not ideal to say the least.
New batteries arrived
The electrician who has been working on Sundance recommended a pair of Rolls 110 amp hour deep cycle batteries. However, it has taken six weeks for the batteries to arrive as I understand there were none in the UK.
New batteries fitted and ready to test.
Now they have arrived, I have fitted the batteries. There was a minor problem with the terminals being one the opposite side of the battery. The batteries arrive fully charged, showing a healthy 13,2 volts. When the charger was activated the amps quickly dropped to a trickle charge, indicating that the batteries were indeed full.
The next test would be trying a period of time off charge, so we took Sundance out for a run. We anchored at one of our favourite bays and left on the chart plotter, depth sounder, rudder indicator, log and fridge. The batteries held a good voltage for the period of out anchorage and most importantly our drinks remained cool in the fridge.
Another job ticked off the long list of works.
Next, fitting a pair of davits………..
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