Off season upgrades, what say you.


nunnink23 said:
For what it?s worth, I went through one ProMariner on my last boat. The first unit failed internally. The way I had mounted them sheltered the units from any water dripping in through the hatch. I can?t say I would have sprayed them when washing the bilge either, since they were mounted up higher.

Maybe just bad luck. The other thing I didn?t like about it was the tendency to boil the water out of my batteries. I found the charger constantly cycled between high charge mode, and maintain, such that I had to add water once every few weeks. I ended up turning off the charger when I left the boat for the work week, and that solved my issue. After that I made it three years without changing batteries (and they still are good now). Previously I was changing them once a year.

Again - maybe my bad luck, or perhaps it?s good practice to shut the charger off when you leave for an extended period of time (a few days or more). That?s what I plan to do with my new boat.
Click to expand...


Thanks for sharing your experience with the Promariners. I am using all AGM's so we'll see how they hold up with them.....I'll report any issues if I encounter any...so far I really like the units but they are about to be put through their paces this upcoming season.
 
nunnink23 said:
For what it?s worth, I went through one ProMariner on my last boat. The first unit failed internally. The way I had mounted them sheltered the units from any water dripping in through the hatch. I can?t say I would have sprayed them when washing the bilge either, since they were mounted up higher.

Maybe just bad luck. The other thing I didn?t like about it was the tendency to boil the water out of my batteries. I found the charger constantly cycled between high charge mode, and maintain, such that I had to add water once every few weeks. I ended up turning off the charger when I left the boat for the work week, and that solved my issue. After that I made it three years without changing batteries (and they still are good now). Previously I was changing them once a year.

Again - maybe my bad luck, or perhaps it?s good practice to shut the charger off when you leave for an extended period of time (a few days or more). That?s what I plan to do with my new boat.
Click to expand...

Wow that is not good for a modern high quality charger. Something doesn't sound right there. A charger of that quality should NEVER boil batteries that's the whole point of it. Was the battery chemistry set up right in the charger? What loads were on the batteries?

I'm not defending promariner, I have no experience either way. However, I would not expect that to be the norm with them. The whole point of a quality charger is to leave the batteries on float when you're not there. You also say that you went through batteries every year, I think there may be some big underlying issues there.

We sell battery chargers but not usually marine chargers, but for generators. Applications where the batteries are on the charger 24x7 for 5 years straight. In short, no correctly set up good charger should boil your batteries, ever. Unless your load is about the same as the charge current, and that would mean the charger is to small. It theoretically then would never get out of absorption charge mode.
 
Replaced the promariner in mine several years ago for similar reason. Could only get maybe 3 years out of bats. Installed a Charles and AGM and all good
 
TurboJoe said:
Wow that is not good for a modern high quality charger. Something doesn't sound right there. A charger of that quality should NEVER boil batteries that's the whole point of it. Was the battery chemistry set up right in the charger? What loads were on the batteries?

I'm not defending promariner, I have no experience either way. However, I would not expect that to be the norm with them. The whole point of a quality charger is to leave the batteries on float when you're not there. You also say that you went through batteries every year, I think there may be some big underlying issues there.

We sell battery chargers but not usually marine chargers, but for generators. Applications where the batteries are on the charger 24x7 for 5 years straight. In short, no correctly set up good charger should boil your batteries, ever. Unless your load is about the same as the charge current, and that would mean the charger is to small. It theoretically then would never get out of absorption charge mode.
Click to expand...

Even with no load on the batteries (switch off) the charger wouldn?t come out of ?charge? into ?maintain? mode until the battery voltage was 14 volts. That?s excessive in my opinion, because the batteries won?t hold 14 volts for very long. What this effectively did was cycle the charger all day.

The going through battery thing was partially my fault. I didn?t realize it was boiling off water until year three (after two years of battery replacement). On year three I maintained the water level and that saved the batteries. On year 4-5, I started turning the charger off when I left. I would come back to batteries with 12.8 volts no matter how long I was gone.

I guess I determined that the charger wasn?t appropriately ?maintaining? and was trying to over charge the batteries.

Just one experience though, and again to be fair it?s not a top of the line promariner. It was just a $2xx west marine two bank charger.
 
nunnink23 said:
Even with no load on the batteries (switch off) the charger wouldn?t come out of ?charge? into ?maintain? mode until the battery voltage was 14 volts. That?s excessive in my opinion, because the batteries won?t hold 14 volts for very long. What this effectively did was cycle the charger all day.

The going through battery thing was partially my fault. I didn?t realize it was boiling off water until year three (after two years of battery replacement). On year three I maintained the water level and that saved the batteries. On year 4-5, I started turning the charger off when I left. I would come back to batteries with 12.8 volts no matter how long I was gone.

I guess I determined that the charger wasn?t appropriately ?maintaining? and was trying to over charge the batteries.

Just one experience though, and again to be fair it?s not a top of the line promariner. It was just a $2xx west marine two bank charger.
Click to expand...
Yeah, not even the same class of chargers...apples to oranges.

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk
 
I've been slowed down the last two weeks by weather and other aspects, but was at the boat yesterday. Boat yard was bustling with the normal activity, except everyone was keeping distant from each other.

Got the port engine exhaust all buttoned up after manifold replacement, starboard engine is half done. Did spark plugs while I was there since they had to come out anyway. Needed some better tools to clean the last remaining head ports off, seems water dripped on the engine on that side and the area outside of the gasket area got a bit more rusty then I would like. Nothing that can't be cleaned up, just didn't have the tools with me and I avoid going into stores away from home, kind of defeats the whole social distancing /travel thing. It looks like the water came from a deck drain that the hose fell off of, I can't find any other signs of where it came from. I guess everything can't be easy.
 
TurboJoe said:
I've been slowed down the last two weeks by weather and other aspects, but was at the boat yesterday. Boat yard was bustling with the normal activity, except everyone was keeping distant from each other.

Got the port engine exhaust all buttoned up after manifold replacement, starboard engine is half done. Did spark plugs while I was there since they had to come out anyway. Needed some better tools to clean the last remaining head ports off, seems water dripped on the engine on that side and the area outside of the gasket area got a bit more rusty then I would like. Nothing that can't be cleaned up, just didn't have the tools with me and I avoid going into stores away from home, kind of defeats the whole social distancing /travel thing. It looks like the water came from a deck drain that the hose fell off of, I can't find any other signs of where it came from. I guess everything can't be easy.
Click to expand...

Great stuff!
 
radiocontester said:
Wrapped up the arch electronics today and finished up the TV mount, power port and HDTV antenna hookup. Also installed the controller for the JL Audio TWK-88 processor and hooked up the auto VHF/AIS antenna switcher. Also re-purposed the galley TV as a digital picture frame. Video here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5G7OEMoNKg

View attachment 10409View attachment 10410View attachment 10411View attachment 10412
Click to expand...

TV is a project for this season when it's in the water at the marina, I removed the old antenna on the arch already and replaced with HS60 compass. I need to trace the plethora of cable all over the place, some look like Formula's rigging, others look like previous owners.

What are you using for TV feed? Marina's cable?
 
TurboJoe said:
TV is a project for this season when it's in the water at the marina, I removed the old antenna on the arch already and replaced with HS60 compass. I need to trace the plethora of cable all over the place, some look like Formula's rigging, others look like previous owners.

What are you using for TV feed? Marina's cable?
Click to expand...

Great stuff. We stream content 99% of the time over the Marina's Wifi. I added a second HDTV antenna just for the cockpit TV in case we want to watch local stations (Shakespeare mini dome on the right hand side of the arch). The other spaceship looking antenna is wired to the salon TV's.
 
Ok RC, source of shower assembly? You’re on the same change pattern I am:cool:! Except the radio upgrades... don’t have that kinda bank:(
 
gixr04 said:
Ok RC, source of shower assembly? You?re on the same change pattern I am:cool:! Except the radio upgrades... don?t have that kinda bank:(
Click to expand...

This is what I purchased from fisheriessupply.com:

Shower.JPG

Note: I ended up keeping the OEM vertical support/mounts and replacing only the shower head, hose, adjustable clip mount and soap dish. I did this because the new shower mount vertical bar was too long and exposed the holes from the OEM mounts. Good news is I was able to polish the old vertical support bar and mounts with 3M polish which brought them back to like new condition. With the new hardware it looks fantastic.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top