2000 Tiara 3500 Open- 6bta Cummins

[trit21]

I was wondering if someone that either has this boat with same power package or Brian (Tiara CR) woud happen to know what alternator came with this boat and power package, 3500 Open with 6bta 370 Cummins. Have a problem that I think is the alternator where my alternator regulator show errors. Error is 1) can't turn off field 2) battery volts disconnected. Not sure what they mean but when I connect the field wire from the alternator regulator to the alternator, get those errors and the battery voltage spikes to over 16 volts. I disconnect the field, of course that alternator will not charge but I turn on the emergency crossover and the other engines alternator charges both battery banks with no problem. So I think it is the alternator. Will try and rebuild but also want to buy a new(refurb) and have a spare as well. Thanks.

[Chris Burkard]

The alternators should be Balmar and are set up to charge Gel Batteries (at least if they are original). I believe Balmar alternators use external regulators.

Let us know if you ever tracked down the issue.

[Umiak]

I have the 2001 35 open with the 6BTAs. I had a problem with my port charging system. Had several " electrical experts" look at it . They all said the balmar alt was bad. I removed the alt and took it to a rebuilt shop. They bench tested it and found it to be good. I replaced the unit. tighented all the connections and still didn't charge . I decided to start from scratch with the ground. from the alt to the reg. - OK , the ground from the reg to the battery " NG. I ran a new ground wire from the reg to the battery and all is well! sometimes it is too simple, we always look for the difficult fix. dbb

[trit21]

ACtually I did track down the issue and it was apparently from the previous owner. The balmar regulators have 2 connections on the back, one for the sense wire and the other to be connected to the tachometer which is an ac signal, basically a square wave with pulses per revolution. Apparently the PO hooked up the starboard sense wire (from the regulator) to the tach AC signal mentioned above which screwed up the regulator output on that side. So, when I tried to hookup the starboard alternator to make it charge the starbord side battery, errors occurred all on the regulator. So I disconnected the charging circuite and re-connected the charging circuit on starboard side like it has been for 1.5 yrs when I bought the boat so I could charge the batteries while underway. Well, finally had time to troubleshoot and make sure the entirety of the charging system was hooked up correctly and figured this out. Took a while but finally figured it out and now both alternators charge their own respective batteries WITHOUT the emergency switch under the steps turned on. Sorry for the long post but kind of hard to explain without and it took so long to figure this out. Never would have figured out it was hooked up wrong.