Arild, My PV controller switches to float mode, (it has no diversion load) taking care of any loads that may be running and putting an amp or two into the battery.
I had thought about using one of the three voltage controlled (adjustable) relays in the Trace to turn on a 12 VDC RO watermaker when the house bank is fully charged but the "round tuit" has not arrived yet. I am going, probably today, to use one of those relays to operate a vent fan to blow out the battery box when the system is at charging voltage. The fan is installed, I just have to do the wiring. I have been rebuilding the core of the house battery system lately. I moved the Trace and associated 12 VDC gear (PV and wind controllers, two 300 A breakers for Trace and main 12 VDC buss plus the new local breakers) to a position high above the battery box (in the saloon) shortening the 12 VDC (3/0) house battery feed lines considerably, simplified the 12VDC buss (2/0) feed lines, shortening the 120 vac lines and generally making the setup more elegant but not making any major changes. All the wires now go through a kick-pipe to the ER now rather that through the engine room hatch allowing us to fully close that hatch for the first time since installing the Trace. This will make the engine noise while underway much less, a big step forward in comfort. The one addition I did make is installing a breaker panel for the 12 VDC feeds around that core area. I bought a GE circuit breaker box at Lowe's for $17+, then removed the breaker rack and discarded the box. That particular breaker rack uses GE thin-line breakers and in a space of about 6"x6" can hold 16 breakers that are available at Low's up to 50 amps. I mounted it beside the Trace and use it to connect local 12 VDC lines such as PV input and wind genny inputs to the house battery (folks tend to forget that a breaker can work just fine in either direction), wheelhouse buss, and for local loads such as bilge alarm, ER big vent fan, saloon 12 VDC lighting, stereo, etc. Your message about battery operated A/C is excellent, I urge you to send it to the List. Norm S/V Bandersnatch Lying Julington Creek 30 07.695N 081 38.484W > How often did you get the battery into the float stage and did your PV > controller switch to the dump load or just keep trickle charging the > battery bank? > > cheers > Arild _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
