Charging Problem

[Jim-n-Bev]

On my 98 330FV the generator, Westerbeke 5.5KW, doesn't seem to charge the house battery.  This weekend on hook, on battery the CO sensor sounded indicating low voltage.  I ran the genny for about 1 hour and within 5 minutes of shutting down the CO sensor sounded LV again.  I ran the port engine at idle for about 1 hour and got a couple of hours before the LV alarm from the CO sensor.  The charger seems to keep things up on shore power.  Am I thinking correctly that the genny should charger the house battery?  I've talked with my mechanic, but they have just been left scratching their heads.

Any ideas?

[raybo3]

Hey Jim-n-Bev welcome to the RBO. Did you switch the main breaks from shore power to genny?????

[Jim-n-Bev]

Thanks for responding so quickly.

Sorry, I should have given you a bit more.  I switched both main breakers to Gen.  I tried with Air Conditioner on (worked fine) and once without AC on.  Both the port and starboard outlets were working and I had the Battery Charger breaker on.  The last time the only things on besides the main breaker for Gen was battery charger and refrigerator.

I guess it's possible that the high rate on my charger is shot and it can only trickle charge?  I'm really at a loss at this point.

[Herm]

Your charger on your shore charger is not very big. Running that for a hour isnt much power back into the bats. And if you where charchng from the Gen it is even smaller. The altenator on your motor will put out about 3 to 4 times more amperage into the batts then those chargers will.
If you where running things off of your bats after those charges like Refrig or stereo lights things like that I can understand why you didnt have much power after running the charger and would explain why you got more time off of the batts after charging from the motor.
Most of our charger will put about 20 amps a hour into the batts  but the altenator is going to be putting out maybe 60 to 80 amps .