NQ6U
11-22-2023, 07:21 PM
Just got back on the air after a month. I had to pull my antenna down while we did some boat maintenance but I put it up today and, while I was at it, wired my radio directly to the boat’s house battery instead of using a 60AH LiFePo, which freed up the space on the floor and hid all the cabling.
It all went pretty smoothly — I even found a gap I could use to run the wires down into the engine room so I didn’t have to drill any holes — but when I hit the power button, nothing happened.
A little poking around soon revealed the problem: the house battery is a group of four six volt batteries connected in pairs then wired in series for 12V, which I should have recognized just by looking at them. But I put it down to angering the electron gods with my hubris when I closed up the engine room hatch and turned off the lights before I tested it.
It all went pretty smoothly — I even found a gap I could use to run the wires down into the engine room so I didn’t have to drill any holes — but when I hit the power button, nothing happened.
A little poking around soon revealed the problem: the house battery is a group of four six volt batteries connected in pairs then wired in series for 12V, which I should have recognized just by looking at them. But I put it down to angering the electron gods with my hubris when I closed up the engine room hatch and turned off the lights before I tested it.