No power when battery is at ON position.

minnesota

Please help,  Rinker techies .  We just purchased a 2008 280.  Loving the boat but I believe there is a wiring problem. The boat has

Battery switch= Blue Sea E-Series Circuit Plus.  3 positions  "OFF", "ON", "COMBINE"

3 batteries, 2 in parallel.

When the battery switch is at the ON position; even with ignition in ACCESSORIES position:  no radio, no horn, no accessories, no CO detector, no power to anything

When the battery is at COMBINE: everything works fine.

Obviously, I don't like to run the boat on COMBINE. Please help, what's wrong here. Can I remove the panel from the aft-port side to rewire?  What do I look for? Working at the back of the panel is not an option (no room). 

Thanks

JC290

Have you load tested batteries, sounds like the one is bad. 

DanD2

First things first, If you have a meter, check the battery to see if you have voltage. Then take the connections off and clean them and make sure everything is tight. Once the connections are clean, if there was no voltage, start the motor in the combine mode and see if the battery is taking  charge. If not, then it's dead.

MarkB

Either the crank battery (one on its own) is not connected or that battery is dead. 

minnesota

Mark B, JC290

Thanks, I will try that today.  I forgot to mention, at the ON position, the gauges still work, I can still start the engine. Its just the stuff normally should be ran by the house battery don't work if the engine is off. radio, clock, search light, CO detector, lights.  Do you still think its the bad lone battery?

MarkB

Minnesota yeah that's strange. It would mean that those things that should be on the house circuit are on the engine auxiliary power. Radio is normally power by engine auxiliary power, but the rest should be on the house circuit. 

minnesota

I just load tested the house batteries, both of them are shot. One lost one cell, the other has only 3 cells left.  New battery for the house bank, all is fine now.  I am a little ticked off the sales people  didn't know this? Thank you all for the input.

Cableguy Greg

Sams Club sells Duracell Group 31 AGM deep cycle batteries for a great price. They are made in the USA by Deka. I put two of them on the house circuit last summer and are still working great.