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. |
