Hrs & Hrs of music with out the boat running????

[Mikeski]

Golf cart batteries are pretty generic, mine are Exide. The ones they sell at Costco should work fine. I wanted Trojan T105s then I was told the guts of the Exides were the same, for $65 each I went for it. Mine came from a local battery shop. The picture was taken without the covers before I relocated one to balance the wake.

I do energy audits and energy conservation retrofits for a living, currently installing 3MW of PhotoVoltaic panels along with lighting and HVAC retrofits at the local community colleges.

[TRBenj]

Mike, is it safe to assume that golf cart batteries are deep cycles? Probably not enough CCA to function as a starting or dual purpose battery Im guessing?

[Mikeski]

There is enough ampacity to start the motor with the golf carts, although I chose to get a small red-top to use as my starting battery.

[gotwake]

Thanks Mike - I think I'll look into doing this in the next few weeks. You run the stock alternator and the batteries (Red top and GC bank) are fine tying them together with a Perko, or solenoid? Seems like it should work - thanks again for the input.

[ag4ever]

Yes golf cart batteries by nature are deep cycle. Deep cycle means they can provide power over a longer period of time, and can be brought down to a lower voltage level before they need to be recharged. Starting batteries are designed to produce high current draws for a shorter period of time, and don't like having the voltage level drop too much.

The biggest issue with the generator on a boat is carbon monoxide. The deadly gas. You would have to put the generator on the swim platform and not let anybody swim around the platform, or put a thru hull exhaust in to keep the carbon monoxide out of your boat. If you just throw the generator in the boat, it will fill with carbon monoxide and possibly kill you. This is because carbon monoxide is heavier than the natural air. The worst part about it is carbon monoxide poisoning makes you sleepy, so you just fall asleep and die. Not something I want to fool around with.

If you had a party barge, you would probably be ok with a generator, as the deck is mostly falt and there is no "dish" shaped hull to hold the fumes in. Also the pontoons hold the deck a good distance off the water meaning the entire floor is a safe distance about the water level wre the carbon monoxide would pool up. You could still have the issue of swimmers getting poising though.

I would vote for the golf cart batteries, but be careful of the charging. If you overcharge them, they will off gas, and possibly spill some acid, ruining your boat. My father-in-law has a nice spot in his garage where the acid from his golf cart has eaten away the concrete floor.

[mfloski]

AG4ever, very valid points regarding the generator. I wish there was a single sure fire fix to this issue!

[01superair]

mfloski- When I say I run for hours it is just what it sounds like I run it for 4-6 hours at a time, the whole purpose of systems like this is to NOT have to run your boat to re charge. To get at this number of batteries was more of what will be able to handle what we want to do not what can we get by with, I am sure I could have put in less but then I would have to worry about the charging and I didn't want to have to be watching the volt meter all day. We "Rock It" hard all day, we all have in and out rca's to link up boats and can easily have over 15-20,000 watts and 8 to 10, 12 W-7's pounding. I would like to add 3 more blue tops in the bow for a total of 11 and I probably will.

To give you some perspective of what I am talking about the group I run with has 22,400 watts of bass alone and 15 12w-7's and a total of 32 batteries, this is all in 4 boats, 3 Super Air's and 1 Air.

Ryan Andrews- I am sure yours runs fine for the amount of hours you are saying but you are not even in the same league, I say compare apples to apples. When I get out on the water this year it will be even bigger I am running 4800 watts of bass alone with 3 12W-7's and another 2200 watts going to the tower and hull so the fastest way to break your equipment is to underpower it, if you can get away with 2 that is fine but in my case the more the better.

Rick- I took the ballast tanks out of the rear lockers and stacked 4 blue tops on each side of the engine and put the battery switch under the rear flip up seat on the starboard side.

[Andrew]

Golf cart batteries are pretty generic, mine are Exide. The ones they sell at Costco should work fine. I wanted Trojan T105s then I was told the guts of the Exides were the same, for $65 each I went for it. Mine came from a local battery shop. The picture was taken without the covers before I relocated one to balance the wake.

I do energy audits and energy conservation retrofits for a living, currently installing 3MW of PhotoVoltaic panels along with lighting and HVAC retrofits at the local community colleges.

maybe i should get some sleep, but this looks like a 24v setup to me???

[Mikeski]

Andrew,
The golf cart batteries are 6v each.

[Andrew]

ahh, did not know that...
guess it makes sense to run them like that then lol