All together now...

The clamps are off and the sanding is nearing completion on the generator box.  For the first time I can show everyone a picture of my vision of the box  because it is all together now...

The only remaining work is to 1)apply Bristol Finish to the wood, 2)install a gasket where the lid meets the box, 3)install cam buckles on the webbing.   For those of you following along, yes the riding mower is still up on blocks.  I strategically positioned myself to have the box eclipse the mower in the image above.  Don't worry we now have the part to get the Husky back to mowing - tomorrow mornings project.  It is a big ole yard and the grass is getting long.

Back to boats... Anne and I also installed our new battery monitor today.  Advice from the Sailnet.com/forums lead us to choose the Victron Energy BMV-600S.   Working as a team the installation went smoothly.  The only outwardly visible change is the circular, digital interface on our electrical panel...  middle, right with a blue backlight in the image below

The monitor provides an accurate, real-time report on battery voltage (volts), battery charge/discharge (amps), amp hours consumed, and state of charge (% of charge remaining in battery).  The unit will also provide a dizzying array of historical data for the battery bank.  We will definitely need to spend some time, manual in hand, to fully reap the benefits of the monitor.  The monitor did provide us some immediate insights into our power consumption.  Immediately after the installation Anne began turning on various systems one by one (i.e. instruments, cabin fans, fresh water pump, propane sniffer, etc.) to measure the amps drawn by each system.  We also can now monitor the input of the wind generator.  Boaters and non-boaters are always asking,  "How much power does the wind generator produce?"   Perhaps soon I will have a good answer.

My suspicion that our 2 year old, 360 amp hour house bank made up of 4 six volt, gel batteries fails to hold a full charge is what lead to the installation of the monitor.  Prior to installing the BMV-600S our systems for monitoring the state of the batteries was either the analog gauge at the breaker panel or a monitor embedded in our Garmin GPS.  The two monitors would often diverge by .2 volts with the Garmin consistently reporting higher voltage than the analog gauge.   Hopefully the new monitor well provide some answers... now we only need to figure out the right questions.