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Jodijoe said:

LaRea said:

The genny should run from a starter battery.  Draining the house bank absolutely should not disable the genny.  If it does, I'm guessing somebody made a mistake reconnecting cables after winter layup.  Figure it out, and make labels for everything.  

The genny did not turn over on a few occasions when the house batteries were at brown out level, so I assumed that maybe the genny was wired to them. I'll double check the wiring. Thanks for clarification that they should be connected to the engine batteries. Maybe the whole problem is my genny. I'm tempted to just buy a new one but that seems silly since it only has 58 hours on it, hence my frustration. Thank You for your help!

I feel your pain.  When I hit the $1,000 mark on getting the generator to work, I decided I had enough.  It must have known.  It has been working great ever since the last repair.  I ended up replacing the circuit board due to endless UV errors.  And like several people have eluded to, a major problem with the generator turned out to be that the ground wire was corroded.  Replaced the ground wire, and all the intermittent problems went away.


I also had issues with the batteries browning out.  That turned out to be the alternators were putting out enough volts, but not enough amps.  There is a box where everything comes together that is a great place to measure for amps.  In the attached diagram it is the box where the alternators and battery charger come together.  On my boat, it is labeled "Battery Isolator" and is next to the charger.

LaRea said:

As one of the other posts said, clean your battery connections before you draw any conclusions.

And before you even think about replacing the genny, prove me wrong.  Run that thing a lot for a month or two, and see if she starts behaving better.  If this forum has proven anything beyond question, it's that marine generators need regular exercise.  

Add me as a "me too".  My boat was new to me last season.  It had sat, unused, for over a year.  The generator was nothing but trouble.  When it finally stabilized, we ran it every weekend.  Now, it runs wonderfully.  Somehow, the genny just wants to be used, and gets mad when it is ignored.

As one of the other posts said, clean your battery connections before you draw any conclusions.

And before you even think about replacing the genny, prove me wrong.  Run that thing a lot for a month or two, and see if she starts behaving better.  If this forum has proven anything beyond question, it's that marine generators need regular exercise.  

They usually just die.  Watch the DC volts meter (top right) and see what happens when you turn the charger on and off.  It should move the needle. 

Then go in the engine room and look at the current meter on the front of the charger itself.  (I'm assuming you still have the original charger.)  When the charger is on, it should show at least 4-5 amps, and you might hear the fan running.  

Oh, right - on a 400 with two air conditioners, you probably have a 7kw generator.  

BTW if your charger is dead, it means the only time you are charging the batteries is when the engines are running.  That would explain why they don't take a charge.  When you unplug shore power after running the charger overnight, the DC volt meter should read at least 12 volts.  

Generator:  your hour meter says 59 hours.  On a 2010 boat, that's less than 6 hours per year.  Ironically, your generator problems might be caused by not running it often enough.  

You should run the genny under load for at least 15 minutes at least once a month, preferably every two weeks.  Let it warm up, and then turn on the AC and water heater to give it some exercise.  

Do that once a week for the first couple months of the season, and see if the problems go away.  

When you are using the generator, it's fine to run it with a light load.  Diesel gennys don't like that, but it's fine for yours.  If that's a 5-kilowatt generator, it can run the charger, fridges, AC and water heater all at the same time.  Might have to turn off the water heater if you want to run the microwave.  

It's possible the sat dish is wired wrong.  The installer might have grabbed the nearest 12 volt feed rather than running a dedicated wire.  A sat dish is not essential safety gear, so you'd want a switch to turn it off.  (For example, a GPS antenna connected to a VHF radio would be considered safety gear, and might be wired as always-on.)