I had stored my solar panels for the passage, now they are all on deck and connected so that I can charge the battery bank a bit. While the panels put in more power than I consume, the net charge per day isn’t very high and it would take me a long time to reach 100% using solar alone. Plus, I’ll have to remove the panels for the passage to St. Lucia, so I’ll be operating on a net loss.
I was surprised by the number of different regulators that ELECTEC has in their inventory, but unfortunately the specific one I needed wasn’t in stock.
I tested the output of the defective alternator after hooking everything back up and found that there was a significant AC ripple current. This means that one or more of the rectifier diodes is “blown”. I think that this ripple current at 5V is too much and could end up breaking my brand-new battery bank. Since I cannot get a replacement alternator on the island or shipped to me in time, I’ll have to disconnect the power leads to the defective alternator. Unfortunately, I’d already put the whole thing back together and will have to clean out several shelves in the galley to access the alternator again. I’ll do that on the morrow, I’m done for today.