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Posts: 800
Location: Delavan, WI | Just wondering if anyone has dealt with the same issues-
I have 3 locators on my boat and they are hooked up to the starting battery along with lights, bilge and other accesories if I leave them on for a couple of hours it drains down the battery and I cant start my main motor, luckily I also have a 9.9 kicker with manual start, I can start that and it will charge the battery enough to start the big engine after a while, its a pain in the butt to have to do that all the time so whats the best way to solve this problem - I though about getting another battery to use just for the electronics and accesories or will a gel battery be sufficient enough to replace my main starting
battery- and still runt the electronics/accesories without going dead in a couplo of hours -your input is highly appreciated- Thanks Martin! |
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Posts: 2323
Location: Stevens Point, WI | First off, how old is your starting battery? Sounds to me it's not holding a charge. |
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| time for a new battery....
I run 4 Lowrances, livewell, bilges, etc etc off a Trojan starting battery..can run it 16 hours and still has plenty of juice to start the 175 suzi...
get a new battery |
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Posts: 800
Location: Delavan, WI | I guess I forgot to mention the battery is less than 2 months old and I replaced because I thought that was the problem with the previous battery which was about 1 yr old I purchased the boat in Nov and did not start having these issues until I installed additional Gps /depthfinder electronics for a total of 3 units it had 2 previosly |
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Posts: 2323
Location: Stevens Point, WI | Where did you get it? Sometimes batteries sit on shelves way past there shelf life. I had a friend buy a battery that was almost four years old and he didn't realize it. The battery didn't make a full season. There should be a date on the battery if I recall right, otherwise pull the battery from the back. Those should be the newest. |
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Posts: 800
Location: Delavan, WI | its a BPS Brand extreme series battery and it was made in 08 so I know its not that old , I also think maybe the generator on my big motor could be bad , the voltage seems to jump between 11.0- 13.0 V at idle and at half throttle it seems to stay between 12.0 and 13.50 seems to be charging, but maybe not all the way?
I am an auto mechanic so I know on cars the voltage should be between 13.0 - 14.5 while running ,Im just not sure if outboards have the same output and what should be normal. |
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Posts: 433
Location: Cedarburg, Wisconsin | One way to figure out where all the battery current is going, put an ammeter in series between the battery and ALL the other connections. Get a reading with everything turned off to see if there is a problem with something that sucks lots of current continuously. If there is, disconnect things one at a time till the problem goes away. If not, turn on the locators, pumps, lights or whatever one at a time and record the current draws. Figure out what the current draws add up to and compare that with the amp hour rating on your battery to see how long it should last. If you have the owners manuals for all the devices you can look up the current draws and see if they are within specs. Kind of a pain in the butt doing this, although it will absolutely tell you what the problem is.
Is it possible you have a bad starter on your motor, one that draws too much current, so it needs a completely charged battery to operate?
My friends boat once had a bad ignition component that constantly bled off current even with the key in the off position causing a dead or partially dead battery condition, depending on how long the charger was off. |
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Posts: 158
Location: Burlington, WI | Do you have a switch to turn off power to the GPS module? In the manual for my LMS 520's they say to have a switch there because the GPS module will constantly draw power whether the unit is on or not. Therefore, I added a toggle switch to be to shut down all of the power used for my GPS/Sonar units. Your GPS module may be drawing your battery down. |
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Posts: 5874
| I had a battery issue once last year. New boat, new battery. Ran my X-111, LMS-332, and the livewell for 5 hours in a tourney. Went to make another pass and my big motor wouldn't start. The charger was plugged in the whole night before, so I know the battery was charged. Got me a new dual purpose battery from Remy in Milwaukee, and have never had a problem since. I also made a set of jumper cables to run from my rear TM plug to the battery. Haven't had to use them yet.
Edited by Shep 7/29/2008 1:35 PM
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batterie issues