My Amps are currently wired directly to my No. 1 battery. Is there any bennefit to running amps to the Perco instead of directly to the batteries? In other words is it worth spending the hours its going to take to re-run the power wire?
The capacitors in your amps will continue to draw power and will eventually run down your battery, so with a Perko you could shut it off. If you dont want to rewire to a Perko, an alternative would be to put a circuit breaker on the power line, and shut it off when not using the boat.
Or, a third option:
Run an electric isolator that separates the batteries when the key is off. This leaves "batt-1" to start the boat and "batt-2", which is usually two or more together, to run the stereo. You can run those all the way till they tap-out and still be able to start the boat. Forget to turn the Perko one time, and you are looking for a jump.
Also, if you kick out $150 for a nice on-board battery charger, you don't have to shut the batts off. They stay "maintained" 100% of the time.
Do a search here on battery chargers. Lots of questions have already been asked and answered.
Any of the posted suggestions will work for you.
Thanks for the advice.
I installed onboard tenders that stay plugged in at all times when not on the water. So the batts are always charged. HAve never had to deal with the Perco so I am no sure how the builder even wired it etc...
Is it standard to have the starter always on the number 1 batt. I know the head unit works no matter what batt I have the perco switched to.
The way it's wired, it doesn't look like the Perko is doing anything for you. The purpose of the Perko is to be able to control what battery you choose to provide power. The way it is, you are controlling nothing.
The starter should come off the common post on the Perko, and then you could choose wether to start withh batt 1 or batt 2. That way you could isolate batts to always have one for starting without worrying about the batt being run down by the stereo.
That makes sence. Thanks for clearing that up for me...
In the past its always worked so never really worried about it.
Now that I got a bit more power in the system I am starting to explore.
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