Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Mastervolt decision....

The decision on the rewiring of TIH has been accelerated by the arrival of the engine. I can either rig up an interim solution or bite the bullet and install, at least part, of the final system. Having studied the matter for some time I firmly believe that a smart distribution system is the way to go. I have yet to see a retrofitted traditional system look good unless it was installed by a very "high end" (read expensive) installer. The labor costs and the costs of cable for a traditional setup certainly make a system such as Mastervolt very attractive.

Now as I understand it;

You run your shore power into an;

Isolation Transformer;



Which stops you frying divers and your hull fittings. And then into a battery charger;



And then via a shunt and connection whatsit



To your batteries.

You then feed the power to lights, bilge pumps, nav equipment, fans and all the other electrical stuff back through the shunt, via a number of these;



using large cables. Each unit can feed 10 individual systems (a lighting circuit, a pump, a refrigerator etc.) of up to 10Amps each (more if combined).

The whole system is monitored by;



and switched using a variation of these, if necessary;



Its all done electronically, even the fuse settings are set using software. The system has a manual backup (blade fuses) in the event of catastrophic failure.


This is the MasterBus USB Interface. I'm sure I'm missing a whole heap of important technical details but the system works for me. Its got to be better than;




4 comments:

builder said...

Yup. That is pretty much it. I say go for it. Some other brand systems require a computer and interface to initially configure the network during installation. Not sure if the Mastervolt system requires it.

Looking forward to the details.

The Incredible Hull said...

Yes. It is setup using software. I have added the interface to the post. Thanks. Gerry

alpine luddite said...

I 2nd it. it will never be a better time to install it then now with the boat in pieces.

have you done a side by side cost comparison?

would you still have critical electronics such as bilge pump, smoke/propane detectors wired directly off the batteries?

Ocean Dove said...

After we wrestle with the pros and con the moment we make the final decision and put it in to action the weight is lifted.
Congratulation on your decision.

Now on to the next one.

Regards
Ocean Dove