Our H340 was hit by lightning last August which provided an opportunity to upgrade much of the electrical system. These pictures show some of the things that have been changed to increase available amp-hours for the house system, and to better monitor the electrical situation.

Guest battery switch: In this picture, you can see the shunt for the new Link 20 below Hunters standard electrical panel, with the standard 1-both-2-off switch.

Looking aft in the starboard aft compartment, new house batteries, new shore power charger: The original Guest shore power charger was replaced with a Xantrex 40 amp charger. The two Group 24 batteries (house and starting) were fried, and we replaced the house system with two Trojan T-105 6v batteries connected in series for 12v, with a new Blue Seas battery box designed for golf cart batteries. Squeezing this box through the opening was difficult and required some deformation of the plastic, but once inside, it fit well. The starting battery is just outboard of this box and is a Group 24 West Marine starting battery in a separate box.

New battery switch: To isolate the house and starting batteries, we replaced the Guest switch with the new Blue Seas 5511e, which is a off-on-combine switch with the two circuits totally isolated on the back of the switch. The fit was painless, only requiring replacing the four mounting screws with new ones that were about 3/4 inch longer.

Combiner: Now that the house and starting circuits are separate, we needed a way to charge both from off the alternator, and I decided to use the Blue Seas 7600 ACR, mounted on the forward end of the compartment.

Buttoned up: The battery box for the golf cart batteries uses two screw-down fasteners on the lid to restrain the batteries.


Monitoring the system: The lightning-fried digital voltmeter was replaced by a Link 20 monitor (right). The galvanic isolator was also fried and replaced with a new ProMarine ProSafe 1 isolator/polarity monitor (lower left). The A/C controls also had to be replaced after the lightning hit (upper left).

Many thanks to Pat McCartin of Inland Marine Diesel for both his advice and for much of the installation of these systems.

Were looking forward to seeing how it all works together. No more worrying about turning off the refrigerator or diving into the compartment to switch batteries!