02-26-2013, 07:12 PM
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.
Tom
