Marine Electronics Forum - Adding a house battery.

I have done a days worth of searching and reading on here about adding a house battery and using different isolators and combiners etc. I do like the idea of the BEP and i think i am going that route. But what else will i need? Some of the threads get confusing. I have twin 200 mercs. Carbed saltwaters. With 2 batteries now. and perko switches. I am going to be adding a house battery when i do my stereo. I saw in a post that "birdman" had a diagram but i never found it. Anyone have this diagram?

Here ya go, the simplest way to do it using the BEP 2 engine, 3 battery bank cluster:


http://www.thehulltruth.com/members/birdman-albums-electronics-old-boat-picture45428-basic-battery-setup-using-bep-cluser-vsrs.jpg

I added a 3rd/house battery this winter. You'll need some additional battery cables to connect the batteries. Here's where I got most of my materials,
http://genuinedealz.com/

OK thanks! and the next key step is using tinned cables and heat shrink connectors right? Any other great advice? On my Fountain, my switches are under the compartment in the back. My batteries are in the floor where my bilge pumps are. (which i don't like this idea). I may move the house battery and the BEP system to the center console where the rest of the wiring is now.

Or you can do it for under $110 with two Combiner100s.

how do you wire up the twin outboard / 3 battery yandina system ?
the website just shows the single engine setup.

Or you can do it for under $110 with two Combiner100s.

I agree.
I set up my 3 batt/1 engine with 2 Yandia Combiners and two 3-way switch.
All my batts charge when I run my engine or I plug in my shore batt charger, which is connected to only one battery.

With 2 starting batts and one house I would think you could get away with only 1 combiner. You would be charging 1 start batt off 1 motor and 1 start batt and the house off the other motor.

On my twin engine boat, one of the starting batteries is also the house battery. I just added a battery to that bank. Plenty of reserve power for my cabin cruiser.If the 2 battery bank goes weak, I just flip the switch to connect both banks and then quickly start the starboard motor.