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Posts: 1938
Location: Black Creek, WI | Has anyone ever had issues with their on-board battery charger? I'm running a Ranger 3-Bank system and for some reason it is now only charging my 2 trolling motor batteries but NOT my starter battery. The indicator lights work (all 3 banks) on the charger and I can charge the starter battery with an external charger (so my battery is fine).... but the on-board won't juice up all 3 batteries.
Any ideas how to troubleshoot this problem? I did recently upgrade my electronics (which run off the starter battery). Could I have a ground issue?
Thanks. |
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Posts: 1096
Location: Hayward, WI | If all connections are ok then try this: Take all 3 sets of leads and hook them to a discharged battery. Plug it in and let it charge overnite. Not sure why this works sometimes, but it is worth a try. I was told this by a tech from Dual Pro a coupel of years ago and have seen it work a couple of times. |
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Posts: 433
Location: Cedarburg, Wisconsin | If the lights are on supposedly showing you have a good working condition when plugged in, I'd think the electronics inside the charger on that bank are probably defective. The charger must have some kind of monitoring system to check output and if this system is detecting a normal condition when there is no charging going on to a worn down battery, I doubt if it could be an inline fuse to the starting battery from the charger. That hopefully would show up as an open and register as a fault condition.
Another possibility might be a horrible connection, one that is severely corroded or a crimp that is sloppy loose going to the starting battery. I always figure it is easiest to start with the connections and work from there.
Ground issue? Not likely, There would most likely be two wires running from the charger directly to the battery, not just one hot lead and the other to a common point on the hull.
If you are ambitious, and assuming your charger had a transformer with three secondaries, you could disconnect all the leads and put an ohm meter across each pair to check the transformer secondaries for similar resistance to see if they are all intact. If the primary had shorted windings, I'd think they all would be defective.
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Posts: 1938
Location: Black Creek, WI | Good info so far. Thanks.
Another observation I made was that when I initially plugged in my 3-Bank charger... the bank for the starter had NO indicator lights on at all. Completely black. After I charged the starter battery with an external charger for an hour or two... the on-board charger lit up for that bank.
Thus my suspicion that the charger will display what the battery is drawing.... but the charger is not charging the battery.
My starter battery is 4 years old... so it is possible my battery is beginning to fail. If its the battery, I'd like to wait until spring to buy a new one.... yet I need to diagnose the issue yet this fall (in case its the charger). Thus, my quest for some help (I'm an electrical idiot).  |
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Posts: 433
Location: Cedarburg, Wisconsin | If you have some jumper cables, you could just disconnect the charger leads to the starter battery, attach the jumper cables and hook them up to a car battery. You can wrap the clips in a towel to prevent them shorting to anything. Turn on the charger and see what happens. If you have the same problem, it's the charger, if it works, it's the battery. |
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Posts: 2754
Location: Mauston, Wisconsin | Jason, Go to Radio Shack and buy a digital volt-ohm-meter. They are relatively cheap, just make sure it's digital - Besides it's also handy for trouble shooting other boat /trailer/truck electrical issues and they are almost idiot proof. ....Red lead to positive and black lead to negative. Set the meter to read DC voltage (DCV). Check the battery voltage with the charger off. A fully charged 12V battery will read ~12.7V at rest (8 hrs after charging). If it's fully charged- turn on some of the electrical loads to discharge the battery a bit- lights, radio, etc. with the meter connected. Then turn on the charger and check the voltage at the starting battery - it should rise up to read ~ 13.5 to 13.8VDC as the battery is charging if it's a sealed no-maintenance, a wet cell would be 13.5 - 14.4V depending on the charger settings. If you don't see a change in voltage when you turn on the charger, you have a charger problem. Each bank probably has it's own fuse. I'd check the fuse first. Set the VOM to read Ohms - when you touch the meter leads together it should read zero (0). Then measure the fuse - the fuse should read almost zero if it's good.
Another handy item to have in the boat is a set of alligator leads - they are real handy if you have a switch or wiring problem while on the water. You can jumper the switch or wiring problem and continue to fish. Get the ones that are ~ 15" long and ~ 16AWG. (again Radio Shack). They typically come in a color coded multiple set. That way you also don't have to hold the meter leads on the battery- just clip an alligator lead to each meter lead and clip the other end to the battery (now you're hands free).
If you're not sure about the meter, ask the salesperson to show you how it works- most are electrical geeks and will glady demonstrate their higher understanding of all things electrical for lesser mortal's.
Good luck!
Al
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Posts: 315
| Definitely sounds like a bad battery to me... i have had some of these problems with my 3 bank and it always ended up being the batteries! |
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| a lot of good info here. you could hook the suspect battery to one of the other banks that are working fine and see what happens also. I think there is a good chance that it could be a bad battery. If your alternator on your main motor is good it shouldn't need a lot of additional charging when off the water. I know my starting battery that is 3 years old basically runs the series of lights and displays full charge a couple minutes after plugging it in. I have two bigger graphs on it along with all the lights, etc.
pmv |
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Posts: 1938
Location: Black Creek, WI | Thanks for the feedback guys.
After further review... I've concluded that my battery is toast. |
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