Hi Steve, Thinking about upgrading a boat from a 12 volt system to a 12/24 volt system to handle electric windlass, electric winches, water maker, etc while still using 12 volts for electronics and lights. In your opinion, what is the best route to go? Thank you Crawford
Hi Crawford: Starting from scratch, we always go with 24V. You save half the weight of the wire loom, get better service from heavily loaded motors, can have bigger alternators and inverters, etc. The negative is that some electronics require 12V–like car music systems, SSB’s, VHF’s etc. We deal with these via a 24-12V converter, and an emergeny tap on the 24V bank. The other issue is the engine/genset system. Sometimes it is easier to leave these at 12V with their own battery (which is what we have on BEOWULF). But re-wiring is a different story. The easiest thing to do is leave in the existing wiring look–which means you cut any voltage drop in half. But I don’t have a feel if this is an efficient use of the cruising kitty. There’s a lot on this subject in the electrical section of Offshore Cruising Encyclopedia. Regards–Steve
Posted by Steve Dashew (November 30, 1999)
