Making Sense of Automatic Charging Relays
Making Sense of the ACR WARNING: ACR's are not for use with LiFePO4 Batteries! What is an ACR? An ACR is nothing more [...]
Marine Alternator Installation – Tips & Tricks
A Fresh New Alternator For many boat owners the task of upgrading their engines alternator can be intimidating. It does not have [...]
Testing A Galvanic Isolator
A 30A Galvanic Isolator WARNING: The galvanic isolator used in this article does not meet the current safety standards. To meet the current [...]
Installing Semi-Flexible Solar Panels
Panel Layout In this article we used a Solbian panel that is no longer in production. Solbian solar panels are a [...]
Programming a Balmar External Voltage Regulator
Preface This article contains three separate videos that show how to physically program Balmar regulators. The videos are meant to be watched in [...]
Installation & Orientation of Flooded Batteries on Boats
Port to Starboard Orientation This photo is simulating a sailboat heeling with flooded batteries. For years I’ve wanted to write this article, but [...]
Fusing & Termination Voltage Drop
5A Fuse - 5A Load As boaters looking for optimal charging performance we need to keep in mind that the path [...]
How Fast Can an AGM Battery be Charged?
TEST EQUIPMENT USED IN THIS ARTICLE BUY MHT RECOMMENDED TEST EQUIPMENT - AMAZON Baseline Discharge 49.3% SOC PREFACE: This article looks at the *charging times & [...]
Winter Battery Storage & Self Discharge Characteristics
December 11, 2012 After having a discussion with one of my customers, about leaving his battery charger running on-board all winter, a practice [...]
Under-Load Battery Voltage vs. SoC
After 20 Hour Capacity Test = 95.69 Ah Capacity For this test I wanted to: Show the relationship of loaded voltage to SoC [...]
Automotive Alternators vs. Deep Cycle Batteries
A Deep Cycle Battery Assassin The alternator pictured here helped to destroy a very expensive bank of TPPL AGM batteries in under two [...]
Installing Solar MC4 Terminals
Solar MC4 Connectors These are solar *MC4 connectors, the FEMALE is on the bottom, and the MALE plug is on top. Today, more [...]
Installing an Autopilot Rudder Position Sensor
Rudder Position Sensor - Radial Drive Close Up In this picture you can see the steering systems radial drive and the [...]
Anode Installation – Best Practices
Anode Installation I recently came from a customer’s boat after doing a winterizing and while there I noticed the anode (zinc [...]
Battery Melt Down Narrowly Averted
Note The Melting of The Battery Case (originally published July 2012) The connections to your batteries matter. How you make them, how you [...]
Universal Diesel Engine – Wiring Harness Upgrade
Engine Panel With Ammeter = Dangerous If your Universal engine panel looks like this, and has an ammeter, you are due [...]