Reminds me of when I left with my boat as it was brand new.... Wasn't until a few days down the river along the trip that I got a battery monitor I'd bought for the boat installed during the delivery... After I got that installed was when I found out that we had no alternator charging. After that staying in marinas over night became more important to us... Really glad we didn't find out that we were in trouble the first night when we ended up having to anchor in a place we'd never been before at midnight just above a lock dam. Mine turned out to be really piss poor wiring and connections to an engine panel mounted amp meter that was just stupid. Replaced it with an hour meter because the boat didn't come with one. Nice you've gone to battle born lithium! I'm kinda going back and forth between going all the way there or just going with the Firefly Carbon Foam when I end up having to replace my 6 year old Gel Cells. They are ACTUAL Gel batteries not AGM so its honestly a good thing that my alternator didn't work or someone would have cooked these batteries with that alternator. I've got an old Motorola too... I've been contemplating upgrading to a larger alternator and a Balmar controller and then de-tuning it so that everything always runs really nice and cool. I'm kinda thinking on just staying with V belt to keep the costs lower but for your boat doing the full serpentine is the way of it! Isn't that MaineSail guy awesome! I kinda wanna buy the Balmar regulator and a nicer alternator to A do it and to B support that guy for all the great articles! Good stuff man!
personally i'd just run a common delco or bosch alternator. easy to repair yourself, cheap to buy and parts are easy to come by wherever you are. when you start talking thousands of dollars for an alternator you could buy half a dozen delco or bosch alternators. also in the thousands price range are water cooled alternators that are fully sealed so no issues with salt water/corrosion.
We kicked around the idea of refurbishing our old Leece-Neville 105A alternator and we did the calculations, but at the rate our LiFePo battery bank accepts such a high rate of input charge we came to the conclusion that your off-the-shelf-auto-parts-store alternator just can't keep up with our battery banks demand. Any more Amps, and we'd still have to upgrade to a serpentine pulley kit nonetheless. Thanks for watching and wait 'til you see what happens next. Just to preface, Balmar was pleasant to work through our issues with....
Reminds me of when I left with my boat as it was brand new.... Wasn't until a few days down the river along the trip that I got a battery monitor I'd bought for the boat installed during the delivery... After I got that installed was when I found out that we had no alternator charging. After that staying in marinas over night became more important to us... Really glad we didn't find out that we were in trouble the first night when we ended up having to anchor in a place we'd never been before at midnight just above a lock dam. Mine turned out to be really piss poor wiring and connections to an engine panel mounted amp meter that was just stupid. Replaced it with an hour meter because the boat didn't come with one. Nice you've gone to battle born lithium! I'm kinda going back and forth between going all the way there or just going with the Firefly Carbon Foam when I end up having to replace my 6 year old Gel Cells. They are ACTUAL Gel batteries not AGM so its honestly a good thing that my alternator didn't work or someone would have cooked these batteries with that alternator. I've got an old Motorola too... I've been contemplating upgrading to a larger alternator and a Balmar controller and then de-tuning it so that everything always runs really nice and cool. I'm kinda thinking on just staying with V belt to keep the costs lower but for your boat doing the full serpentine is the way of it! Isn't that MaineSail guy awesome! I kinda wanna buy the Balmar regulator and a nicer alternator to A do it and to B support that guy for all the great articles! Good stuff man!
personally i'd just run a common delco or bosch alternator. easy to repair yourself, cheap to buy and parts are easy to come by wherever you are. when you start talking thousands of dollars for an alternator you could buy half a dozen delco or bosch alternators. also in the thousands price range are water cooled alternators that are fully sealed so no issues with salt water/corrosion.
We kicked around the idea of refurbishing our old Leece-Neville 105A alternator and we did the calculations, but at the rate our LiFePo battery bank accepts such a high rate of input charge we came to the conclusion that your off-the-shelf-auto-parts-store alternator just can't keep up with our battery banks demand. Any more Amps, and we'd still have to upgrade to a serpentine pulley kit nonetheless. Thanks for watching and wait 'til you see what happens next. Just to preface, Balmar was pleasant to work through our issues with....
you can buy a delco remy cs144 200 amp dual rectifier alternator for $300