Batteries discharging

rasbury

Never thought my batteries held a charge well. I have new batteries and up until last week was at the house on the charger. I have a little 12v plug-in to tell me the charge on the batteries and it was showing charge. I put it in storage snd over about a week they are dead, battery switch is off and the accesory switch off. How do I figure out what is pulling it down? I know there are things that will still work-: trim, vhf, bilge pumps...it is the original charger. I assume while charging it does not matter where the battery selector is? If I'm charging and a meter would show over 12 volts it is acceptably charging? I don't want to install a "master" power cut off somehow for storage but not sure what else to do...

PickleRick

Your battery selector switch is already a master power cut off for most accessories other than bilge pumps and CO2 detectors or anything else wired directly to the battery.  


I'd venture to say your have a bad battery(ies) before a parasitic draw.  Battery quality sucks these days. 


If possible remove batteries and bring them home where you can put them on a low amp charge for 8 plus hours.   Then load test them.  If you can't load test them take them to an auto parts or battery supply store and they can load test them.     


If they test good you can then look for parasitic draw.  There are some good YouTube videos on how to test amp draw with a simple multimeter.  You pretty much just attach one probe to the battery and the other to the disconnected (pos iirc) battery cable.   Then you unplug each and every fuse looking for a drastic drop in amps.  


If the batteries are drawing down while the battery selector switch is off you can focus on accessories that are wired directly to the battery.  A bilge pump float being stuck will drain a battery and would be the first thing I'd listen for.  


Your battery charger, with good batteries will be putting out 13 to 14.5 volts while turned on.  If you have an extremely dead battery it may read less depending on the amperage settings.  A good battery at rest will have 12.5 to 12.6 volts.  If you check the battery immediately after being removed from a charger it will still read 13 plus volts for a bit.  

rasbury

Thanks @PickleRick. My boat is pretty simple as it is all factory and for the most part everything is original. I always struggle with electrical troubleshooting. If I can see what is broke I can generally figure out a way to fix about anything- electrical just does not sink in- but do understand the troubleshooting method you describe and that makes sense. I don't have anything else added to the battery except for the generator.  So, the permanent hot items must be coming off the selector switch. I will pull the batteries and have a charger here at home I can charge them up and have tested.  As mentioned I have had this going on since I've had it but they always charged and our boating has been day boating or on shore power so have always gotten by with it. I suppose the selector switch could be bad?

PickleRick

The selector switch could be bad ,  a multi meter would test this as could a test light.   If it was bad I'd think your accessories/engine would all work even if the switch was off.


If testing with a multimeter is too daunting you could verify the switch works and then remove the fuse out of each item connected to the battery one at a time.  When you unhook the one that is killing battery your problem will then go away, so long as it's not a combination of little parasitic draws.  


My last issue with this was on a 6.0 Ford powerstroke f450.

I'm assuming a diode in the alternator went bad as that was my cause of a very significant amp draw while sitting.  

New alternator cured it.    I had been through every fuse and relay inside the cabin and under the hood 3 times before I found the alternator being the culprit


Sadly with electrical you only see the issue when it's so bad you're letting the smoke out of it. 

mattie

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mattie

Sorry, re-read your post. The batts are new...
not sure what to suggest other than onboard charger is done.

Cableguy Greg

If the charger is original, chances are it’s time to replace it. If you open your battery switch door, there are a few circuits that are 24 hour circuits. Those circuits remain on no matter what position the battery switch is in. The mercathode, CO detector and the bilge all run with the battery switch in the off position. The mercathode is not supposed to draw power if the boat isn’t in the water. The CO detector will draw the batteries down, but it usually takes longer than a week. 

If the charger is original, it will usually see that one battery is full and stop charging. Usually this happens when the starting battery is charged and the house battery isn’t. The charger will see a full battery and go into float mode. This was happening to me on my boat. Changing the charger has helped me out a ton. 

rasbury

@PickleRick, thanks...I don't have fuses, I have two panels with push type breakers, same principle or are those fuses in those?? I need to get in the water and progress is really being slow...

PickleRick

Yes checking the breaker would be similar but I'm still betting your batteries and/or charger will be the issue. 

Sorry I didn't respond earlier, I'm also getting my boat ready for the first launch. 

rasbury

No worries @PickleRick...I've not pulled one of those breakers apart..looks like the top of it unscrewed at the panel and that will disengage the circuit? I'm really hampered by tye city in brining our boat home to work on..

PickleRick

I am fortunate that my boat sleeps less than 20 ft from my home, the county can't do anything about it so long as I keep registration on it. 


As for the breaker panel I cannot answer that as I've not had one apart in ages.  My Bayliner uses a fuse panel.

rasbury

I'm sure I'm not describing it correctly as mine is no different...little round thing with a button in the middle that pops out when it trips....never opened one!

Ian

rasbury said:

Never thought my batteries held a charge well. I have new batteries and up until last week was at the house on the charger. I have a little 12v plug-in to tell me the charge on the batteries and it was showing charge. I put it in storage snd over about a week they are dead, battery switch is off and the accesory switch off. How do I figure out what is pulling it down? I know there are things that will still work-: trim, vhf, bilge pumps...it is the original charger. I assume while charging it does not matter where the battery selector is? If I'm charging and a meter would show over 12 volts it is acceptably charging? I don't want to install a "master" power cut off somehow for storage but not sure what else to do...

How new, what brand and size? My 2 starters died after 2 seasons and I figure a bad batch as the house of a different size bought at the same time is still going strong.

PickleRick

If I remember correctly the breaker switch has two spade terminals on the back, no need to pull them apart just remove the spade side that connects to the accessory and jump the milti meter there. 


But if your batteries are discharging while battery selector is in the off position you shouldn't have power to your dash.  That means it's likely one of the times that attach to the battery before the battery switch, items that are always hot.  Bigle pumps, CO2 detectors, engine bay fire extinguisher system...etc.  I'd only check dash switches if she's dying while battery is in the on position. 

rasbury

@PickleRick- this is what I'm calling breakers-the little round ones upper right. This is not my panel.  I dove into the backside of that panel for a bilge pump circuit. So if I understand I'm pulling down that panel and pulling one side of what ever connections go to the "breaker" and probe that? Also, dumb question...my batteries, thankfully, have few direct wires and the always on connections go to the selector. I have a normal +/-, I have a +/- for the generator and then one other fairly heavy Guage positive on the house battery with no other negative connection. I've always been careful to put stuff back the way I found it, but it occurs to me, that might not be how it's supposed to be- one hot wire from each battery visually you can see go up to the selector while the grounds go into a harness- my question is, does it matter which ground wire goes to each battery?

Grahamu

I doubt It would matter, all grounds should be inter connected.

rasbury

That's what I'm thinking...but then I know not much!

mattie

Ian said:

How new, what brand and size? My 2 starters died after 2 seasons and I figure a bad batch as the house of a different size bought at the same time is still going strong.

@Ian
lol - ours are opposite. Go thru house batteries at 2-3 times faster than starting batts.

rasbury

I wish I started mine enough to wear one out...so here are my batteries. When I used the boat more I had good luck with them- but these are maybe a little over a year..and sat. The smaller batter recharged.  The larger goes to 15 amps and then a breaker trips in the charger and shuts down. That one takes a little ride...

rasbury

Sooooooo, I think I have a problem with the starter or starter system. Perhaps this is what killed my battery, hopefully not the new one.

After getting all the fuel out of my tank and getting some fresh fuel in it back to the ramp to test. First crank sounded good and strong pulling fuel into the system. Probably still bad fuel in the cylinders or crap in the injectors. Couple more cranks and it's starting to sputter a bit trying to start. And then with the turn of the key it makes this sound like something is shorting...maybe the selonoid is clicking/sticking or something and then the key is dead for anything out of the starter. All my accessories seem to work. I do not get beeps like normal when I turn the key to on. I bet I could, if I did not just ruin a new battery, go to the boat tomorrow  and it would turn over. It did this before killing the battery but just suspected a bad battery. The stater selonoid on the top I just replaced and it is not tripping. I guess at the very least I need to check the connection at the starter.  Is the selonoid the power to the starter to engage the starter motor and the flywheel? Not a selonoid at the starter like a car starter? I would add that about 3 years ago , long story, but the bilge flooded and submerged the starter and I've been waiting for a problem ever since. This is the original starter and I had it rebuilt when we first got the boat 200 hours ago...

Lake_Bum

Ras.....bite the bullet and take that boat to a mechanic.  You have barely used it in quite awhile attempting to fix all these things yourself.  I commend you for trying, but it's painful to watch you lose another complete season trying yourself. 

PickleRick

You can use your model number to look up a new starter then get a cheap replacement from a reputable aftermarket vendor like DB electric out of Tennessee or spend a little more coin and get an even better than OEM upgraded one with more torque/less amp draw/more starting rpms and no cheap nylon parts for less than the cost of an OEM mercruiser one(with nylon cheap parts).  I'll have to research who that vendor is but I think @LaRea installed them while his engines were out after I posted a link detailing their reviews on a marine engine forum.   While your starter may not be bad, I like having a spare stater on the shelf for just in case moments.  I keep lots of spares because I hate losing time on the water, we only have so many lake going weekends a year.  


You can remove yours and take it to an auto parts store,  tell them it's from a Chevy 1500pickup truck the same year as your boat.  They should test if for free if they don't catch on it's a marine starter. 

LaRea

I got the starters from API Marine (www.apimarine.com), and I'm happy with them.

For what it's worth, I also used API alternators, and they both failed after 2.5 years/100 hours.  I'm not sure if I did something wrong, or got two from a bad batch.  

earl1z19

LaRea said:

I got the starters from API Marine (www.apimarine.com), and I'm happy with them.

For what it's worth, I also used API alternators, and they both failed after 2.5 years/100 hours.  I'm not sure if I did something wrong, or got two from a bad batch.  

what did you use for alternators after the bad ones?

LaRea

I was in a hurry, so I got generic ones that Amazon could deliver the next day.  No complaints so far.  

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SVE6NIK

YYZRC

I used DB alternators on two Rinkers. Great experience with them. 

davidbrooks

Gonna second DB electric.  I have used them for alternators and a starter.

rasbury

@Lake_Bum I just have to do things myself that I can do- I mow my grass, I work on our cars as best I can. My experience with taking stuff to have someone fix it has not been great. I pulled the motor out to re do the transom asy- keep in mind our boating season here is really at least 11 months our of the year. The single motor 270 affords much more room to work on stuff. I can probably have it out in less than an hour...but I just started a new job- and would love to take it somewhere.  I had a shaft seal go bad and did have that fixed- risking trashing the out drive vs 300 bucks to pay someone well worth it- but I understand your comment! 

Dream_Inn

So, I went with a true OEM starter after it being the absolute worst thing I've ever encountered trying to remove off of my boat.  I bought from Wholesale Marine and been very happy with my purchase.
https://www.wholesalemarine.com/mercury-mercruiser-50-863007a-1-starter-assembly/

PickleRick

Taking a starter off of an inboard Chevy V8 isn't terrible if you don't mind spooning with your motor.  

rasbury

It's not bad..I put a blanket across the batteries and the raw water strainer and it's doable. I pulled it once...