R21 EC ELECTRICAL QUESTIONS

[lproulx]

Hello All,

I am the new owner of a 2014 21-EC. It has A/C, so a total of five batteries. I keep the boat on a mooring in Marblehead, MA. It didn't take me long to forget to turn off the battery master switch. The yacht club launch brought out a car starter which I connected directly to the posts on the engine battery and started the engine. I let the engine run at high idle for a while and assumed that all the batteries involved would be getting charged by the alternator. Not so. After 30 min, house battery still completely dead.

After some research I discovered the boat has these gadgets called "ACRs" which are intended to prevent dumping the load of a completely discharged battery onto the charging system and possibly dropping the overall voltage enough to kill the engine or some such. I went back out with a pair of jumper cables, started the engine, and briefly jumped the engine battery to the house battery. Voila! Voltage came up on house battery immediately and all house loads worked OK.

I can't believe this is what you have to do in this circumstance. There has to be an easier way. I looked up the rotary battery switch on the internet, and they have one that has a position that will parallel otherwise isolated batteries. This would solve the problem, but it's not the kind Ranger installed, and doing so now would require all kinds of nasty cable runs with very heavy cable.

A possibly related question- There is a device on the engine side of the little bulkhead separating the engine from the batteries that has a red button on the front, and a little yellow wing-like thing that can be manually pivoted out of a recess in the bottom. What is it?

Any comments on any or all of this would be appreciated.

Larry

 

[Capt’nKarl]

Good afternoon Larry. I have a 21EC as well albeit a 2009model. I also used to have the 12 Volt AC but did anyway with it after finding the unit didn’t perform well in the Florida heat and having to keep the extra batteries on board. I don’t have an answer about the charging issue you are having but maybe you’ve solved that issue. The device you are referring to is a circuit breaker. When you push the button the “wing thing” comes out the bottom and the circuit is broken. To reset simply push the wing in. If this circuit breaker is tripping it may indicate you have an electrical issue that might be preventing your batteries from receiving a charge. Hopes this helps.
Cheers
Karl