- Mar 12, 2003
- 1,273
- 40
- 53
- Name
- Charlie
- Boat Name
- 23' Parker CC, "Chesapeake Charlie"
I am having serious god damned problems with my electrical system on my boat. I installed a Yamaha F150 4-stroke two years ago on my Boston Whaler. At that time I also rewired the entire electrical system from the ground up. I installed two Trojan Dual Purpose batteries with 550 MCA and about 150 reserve. These worked flawlessly for two years (about 400 hours), but this spring I began to see that my engine was turning slowly and that the batteries would no longer hold a good charge. No problem. I bought a new set of batteries and installed them a month ago. I ran the boat for about 8 hours one day without shutting down the engine (shark trolling). When I put the boat on the trailer I turned off the motor and then tried to restart it, but it wouldn't even turn over on battery number one. Battery number two was ok. I checked my engine manual and discovered that these new batteries were slightly smaller than those reccomended for my motor...So, I went to Interstate and bought a new set of 27 series deep cycle batteries. These have 750 MCA and about 180 reserve minutes.
I ran the boat this weekend on battery number one..it started fine. I got to my halibut spot and did about a half hour drift. When I went to reset the engine wouldn't turn over. I switched to battery number two. It worked for about the next two hours and then it bled down to the point where it would no longer turn my engine over. Fortunately I was able to start the motor back on battery number one which had charged on its own enough...
My charging system is putting about 14.2 volts across whatever battery I am running off of.....There is no problem with that. There is no bleed to my system when I have my batteries turned "off" by my Perko switch. The two batteries are installed with a standard Perko switch that goes from off to one to both to two. It's the standard switch found on most small boats. I checked it and it works fine, too.
Soooo, I got home and drank beer hoping this would solve the problem....It didn't. I charged up both batteries at home with my charger and tried the following:
I switched to battery number one that was reading about 13.25 volts following my charging it....I turned on my plotter, my sounder and my baitpump (put the baitpump in a bucket of water so as not to burn it up). I was able to watch the volts bleed off steadily over about half an hour's time down to 11.0...This is not enough to crank my engine..when I went to start it it just turned about half a turn and that was that.....
I then switched over to battery number two. It was reading about 13.0 volts following charging. I ran my electronics for about one hour before the voltage bled down to about 11.0 volts. Again, my engine would not crank over.
Regarding my batteries and how they are hooked up.....They connected by the negative terminal with a 2 gauge battery cable. The cable is like new. The positive of battery one goes to the perko switch. The positive of battery number 2 goes to the perko switch. Coming off of my perko switch is my hot cable that runs back to the starter. Also coming off of the perko switch is the hot wire for my trim tabs (ran out of room on my positive fuse buss) and the hot wire that powers my positive fuse buss. There is nothing attached to battery number one except the hot wire powering the perko switch and the negative cable that runs to the negative terminal of battery number two. Attached to the terminals of battery number two are the hot wire to the perko switch and, on the negative side, the ground cable coming from my starter, the ground for my negative fuse buss, the negative connecting cable that goes to battery number one and the ground for my trim tabs. That's it.
There are no loose grounds anywhere in my system that I can identify. There are no hot or burned wires.
Are these deep cycle batteries supposed to bleed off that much voltage in such a short period of time? Are they insufficient for use as a primary starting battery for my F150?
I don't want to buy an 'add a battery switch" from West Marine along with a proper isolater because I have never needed these in the past. My wiring is the same as it was when I wired everything up two years ago. Absolutely nothing has changed.
My plotter pulls less than an amp, my sounder pulls less than an amp and the bait pump pulls 2.8 amps. Can this lower the voltage in my batteries so quickly as not to be able to start my stupid engine? All of my electronics run through my fuse buss (except my trim tabs).
WTF is going on? Any help would be greatly appreciated.....
Chuck
I ran the boat this weekend on battery number one..it started fine. I got to my halibut spot and did about a half hour drift. When I went to reset the engine wouldn't turn over. I switched to battery number two. It worked for about the next two hours and then it bled down to the point where it would no longer turn my engine over. Fortunately I was able to start the motor back on battery number one which had charged on its own enough...
My charging system is putting about 14.2 volts across whatever battery I am running off of.....There is no problem with that. There is no bleed to my system when I have my batteries turned "off" by my Perko switch. The two batteries are installed with a standard Perko switch that goes from off to one to both to two. It's the standard switch found on most small boats. I checked it and it works fine, too.
Soooo, I got home and drank beer hoping this would solve the problem....It didn't. I charged up both batteries at home with my charger and tried the following:
I switched to battery number one that was reading about 13.25 volts following my charging it....I turned on my plotter, my sounder and my baitpump (put the baitpump in a bucket of water so as not to burn it up). I was able to watch the volts bleed off steadily over about half an hour's time down to 11.0...This is not enough to crank my engine..when I went to start it it just turned about half a turn and that was that.....
I then switched over to battery number two. It was reading about 13.0 volts following charging. I ran my electronics for about one hour before the voltage bled down to about 11.0 volts. Again, my engine would not crank over.
Regarding my batteries and how they are hooked up.....They connected by the negative terminal with a 2 gauge battery cable. The cable is like new. The positive of battery one goes to the perko switch. The positive of battery number 2 goes to the perko switch. Coming off of my perko switch is my hot cable that runs back to the starter. Also coming off of the perko switch is the hot wire for my trim tabs (ran out of room on my positive fuse buss) and the hot wire that powers my positive fuse buss. There is nothing attached to battery number one except the hot wire powering the perko switch and the negative cable that runs to the negative terminal of battery number two. Attached to the terminals of battery number two are the hot wire to the perko switch and, on the negative side, the ground cable coming from my starter, the ground for my negative fuse buss, the negative connecting cable that goes to battery number one and the ground for my trim tabs. That's it.
There are no loose grounds anywhere in my system that I can identify. There are no hot or burned wires.
Are these deep cycle batteries supposed to bleed off that much voltage in such a short period of time? Are they insufficient for use as a primary starting battery for my F150?
I don't want to buy an 'add a battery switch" from West Marine along with a proper isolater because I have never needed these in the past. My wiring is the same as it was when I wired everything up two years ago. Absolutely nothing has changed.
My plotter pulls less than an amp, my sounder pulls less than an amp and the bait pump pulls 2.8 amps. Can this lower the voltage in my batteries so quickly as not to be able to start my stupid engine? All of my electronics run through my fuse buss (except my trim tabs).
WTF is going on? Any help would be greatly appreciated.....
Chuck
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