R29-S electrical system

[Dave2016R29]

I just purchased a 2016 R29-S and am trying to figure out the electrical system, so a couple of questions.
1. It is not clear from the Blue Sea system how to switch from generator to shore power. There is a rotary switch with Off at the top, but the two other positions are not marked. Looking at the owners' manual, it looks like shore power is to counter clockwise and generator is to clockwise. Is this right? Should I keep this in the off position until I want to use the generator to charge the batteries? Then turn clockwise when I run the generator? I keep on a mooring, so not usually on shore power.

2. What voltage should my batteries register if I have all systems off?

3. My solar display has a red light. So it is not charging? It is cloudy today, so could that be it? Or some other problem.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Bruce Moore]

Bumping delayed post.

 

[Scuba Too]

Hi Dave,

I have a 2017 R29-CB so similar. The rotatory dial should be set to off (top center) when not on shore power or generator. When starting the generator keep the rotary dial off until the generators has warmed up a little (not good to put demand on a cold gen). If everything is working you'll see a green light on the position to the right of center - this shows the generator is providing power. You can then switch the dial to the right. Note that the position to the left for the shore power should have two indicator lines - one for Shore 1 and the other for Shore 2. Mine does have labels btw. I'll look to see if have pics to send.

On batteries I'm currently getting about 12.5V but it drops from there and are due for replacement. Once you get below a certain voltage - 10.8V from the manual - you have to reset the charging by switching on the parallel switch while the engine is running (though I've found it works even if the engine isn't running). This happened to me once with the batteries not charging so a good thing to know (which I didn't the first time lol).

I'm not sure what's happening with the your solar charger...

Eric

 

[Dave2016R29]

Thanks much! All makes sense. I spent some time Fiddling with it today and am starting to figure it out. Solar display shows E5. I am exploring a couple of threads on that in here Seems I might Need to “reset” The controller. Always something new to learn!

 

[Gin]

By solar display, do you mean the remote solar monitor? Where is the red light you are seeing? On my R31, I have the Duo Controller and the Renogy MT-1 remote monitor. Errors on the monitor show up as a triangle with an exclamation point in the middle. The controller does have Batt #1 and Batt #2 status LEDs. I don’t look at those much on my boat, because they are in the cockpit locker and not easy to check. So I can’t say if and when they are red. But on my remote monitor, I have never seen a red light of any kind.

 

[Dave2016R29]

The red light is on the remote display panel (I assume normally it is green). It shows 0 output from the panel. The controller is practically inaccessible because it is blocked by battery cables. Not sure if it came from the factory like that, or when the previous owner had the batteries replaced.

 

[Gin]

If you have the MT-1 Tracer display, on the frame of the display, the green light is marked “Charge” and the red should be marked “Error.” I’ve never had to chase down an error code. But according to the manual (page 8), it could be one of several things. The manual offers suggestions for each (usually, check connections then disconnect and reconnect the display).

You can download or view the manual at this link: https://www.renogy.com/template/files/Manuals/TrcrMtr-MT-1.pdf

Good luck. Let us know what it turns out to be.

Gini