Do you agree with my thinking here...?

Frustrated from Fradley needs some advice!

I trumpeted my battery swap out here....Clicky Over the last few weeks I have been frustrated with the performance of the new batteries, any small load (TV 25w ) sees big %'s drop. initially I put it down to the Smartgauge calibrating the new batteries, but the solar controller was giving me its verdict of half empty batteries too often.

I began to suspect I had a bad battery. So last night after watching a dvd via the Mac HDMI link to the tv I went to take Leia out and the Solar controller was giving me the red light and the Smartgauge was saying 47% dropped from 74% and a voltage of 12.2  That % drop was not consistent with running a 25w tv for 3 hours with a few pump cycle and little lighting as we had the Christmas tree lights on !!

So this morning it was on with the overalls, the genny was set to charge the computer and Ipads up while I investigated. The multimeter said the starter was sitting at  12.76 v and the two leisures were 12.74 v so I disconnected the two leisures and they were showing  12.58v and 12.91v Now they were new together so you would expect them to be close to similar voltage when not connected (am I right here?)

So I swapped the starter with the lower (questionably faulty battery). Gave the engine some TLC, the 1929 design means an oil can rather than oil pressure lubricating its workings... and started the donk up.

It went to EP  - engine battery priority, basically putting all the alternator output into the starter battery  (for those who would be interested in the Smartgauge/Smartbank system the manual is here ) I expected this as the questionably duff battery was low and starting the engine would draw it lower so the system gives it all the alternator output.

It then went into connected mode (CON) meaning it was charging both starter and leisure, however this went on far too long indicating to me that the starter was not taking the charge as it should, the smartgage was detecting this and keeping it connected (via the relay) to try and get it to an acceptable level (am I right here?)

So the test will be in how the two leisure batteries hold up over the next week. I am not a power user, water pump, shower pump some low power lights, no fridge at the moment just the 25w tv. I'd expect the two 110a/h batteries to cover this with loosing only a few % each evening?

Any advice or observations welcome.


PS.... I drafted this last night while out at my sister in laws, came back to the boat at 11pm from leaving at 3pm to find I had left the inverter on and the engine room light.... only lost a few % on the SG so that looks promising.