New Boat Batteries

Instead of working on the keel, decided to take Rita and head to the new boat in Etobicoke.

The weather was sunny, 18 degrees!

Under the cover on deck, it was very hot.

However, inside the boat, it was a cool 1 degrees.

Initially, there was not enough juice to run the stereo (kept on cutting out).  Battery meter was saying 11.5 volts.  Hooked up to yard power and charged the batteries for a couple of hours.

I bought a hydrometer to test the batteries.

Starter Battery (cell. specific gravity):

1. 1.275
2. 1.300
3. 1.300
4. 1.285
5. 1.300
6. 1.300

Could use an equalization. Anything above 1.265 indicates a charged battery.  This is what I expected as the starter battery is one season old.

On to the house batteries.

House Battery #1

1. 1.125
2. 1.100
3. 1.125
4. 1.150
5. 1.100
6. 1.125

 House Battery #2 

1. 1.125
2. 1.125
3. 1.125
4. 1.125
5. 1.175
6. 1.125

Anything under 1.140 indicates a discharged battery, yet they have been charging for almost two hours. This may have to be adjusted for temperature, but the starting battery was fine!

I'm thinking the house batteries are toast!  They are at least 6 years old.

In the salon are five ceiling lights: I verified that these lights draw one amp each!!!  So I had these on, along with lights in the nav station, head, and rear cabin, and confirmed they were drawing 8 amps using the Link 10 battery meter!  Definately need to upgrade these lights to LED.  I am thinking they are 12W halogens. A quick internet search showed there are drop in replacements for these.

Did some measurements to see if they battery compartments can accomodate four 6V golf cart batteries.  Initial thoughts are they are too tall.

Rita and Bogart had a snooze while I worked on the batteries