Isolated battery's forward for specific tasks...

[souljour2000]

Does anyone use "dedicated "batterys" in isolated areas...that are independent from the main charging banks...For example.. I want to do a conversion of my vee-berth from two bunks that are old-fashined hi-lo into a normal vee-shaped wide bed...this allows my salon dinette to be a dedicated salon dinette for eating/sitting/enetertaining which is what I want...BUT...my vee berth as my primary sleeping area will not have good ventilation as there is no hatch or dorade boxes up that way...so I might install one or two 12v fans up there. I hate to run a circuit all the way from the batteries in the stern quarterberth areas though...I'd rather maybe have a deep cycle 12-v batt sitting up in the bow or vee-berth area down low somewhere that is charging off a solar panel above to run the fans...and occasionally an anchor winch ..It would not be connected to the main house batteries ...or could be but only if I flicked a gate switch.

Not as simple a system but I'm thinking if I integrated it normally the wire from the house batt up to the fans would have to be thick and long and the voltage drop would be fairly large since its a forty-foot boat...not good.
This "isolated, dedicated, vee-berth battery might also be serve a dual-purpose to run an anchor winch as mentioned (though would have to be full charge when doing so and so maybe I could just remove it from mount and drag it back to be charged by onboard generator and 50 amp charger)...so it would serve two tasks one...low amp draw..one high amp draw for winch...shorter localized run would help the high-amp winch amp draw when employed...rest of time...it need only serve a low-amp draw to the 1-2 12v fans I'd be using every night (florida summer)...

[souljour2000]

Too much of a hassle isn't it...In retrospect...it's better to just make the runs...with bigger gauge wire and live with it i think...discuss

[Siamese]

Sounds like waaaaay more hassle than simply running the fan wires back to your main battery bank.

Yeah, it'll have to be a heavy wire, but just base it on the load of the fans and the distance traveled.

[msmith10]

It could make sense for powering a windlass, but not for a couple of fans.

[souljour2000]

Originally Posted by msmith10

It could make sense for powering a windlass, but not for a couple of fans.

Yeah...for the windlass..not for the fans...those are easy i realize now...if I can find some good low-draw fans...it would be no big deal to wire them normally..

the windlass though is the bugger in the bunch with it's high amp draw...i wonder if a dedicated batt for it is probably somewhat common amongst cruisers ???...

[hellosailor]

souljour have you done your math?

An 80-foot round trip wire run powering 2 amps for the fans would be satifactory with 12AWG wire, no big deal. Not knowing what fans you have, I can only suggest you run the numbers.

Windlasses are something else entirely.

[TRMN8R]

Or find some battery operated fans? As others have already said, way more work than it needs to be, extra weight, outgassing issues if not using sealed batteries, who wants to move them when they need to be moved? You can chase wire pretty much anywhere......hope this helps!

[mitiempo]

Souljour

As hellosailor said, 12 awg is fine for fans.

But - do you have any 12 volt interior lights forward? If so install a small terminal block at the end of the light feed and run wires from there to the fans.

As far as a windlass battery - moving a battery to charge makes no sense. And for a windlass the charging wires to a forward battery are almost as heavy a gauge as the wires run forward if using the main bank. Best to run the proper 2/0 or whatever wire and have one less battery to worry about.