Battery and Battery Charger

Post by **Eagle** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 6:16 pm

Bought a 2 bank on board charger for the boat. The bank for the deep cycle seems to work great. The one for the engine, well...at full charge the voltmeter reads 12 to 12.5V. At maintance mode for the deep cycle I get about 13.5V. Concluded that there is something wrong with the engine bank. I did follow manufacturer's instructions, unplug and clean post, etc, then re-connect and see what the voltmeter reads...no improvement. What got me to look is that the deep cycle went through the charge cycles in a few hours and the engine bank was still at "full" charge. Is my conclusion reasonable? The charger toast? Did this trash the engine start battery? If it did, do I get the same brand or can I mix brands between the start and deep cycle batteries?
They are lead acid, so I would stay with that.

As usual, thanks for the input!!!

Eagle

Post by **bass ackwards** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 7:35 pm

You battery may be toast???? Voltage should read around 13.5 volts, get a load test done on it . If its over 5 years old its probably done in. I believe Canadian Tire will terst it for free>

Post by **ady** » Tue Apr 25, 2006 5:46 am

Get yourself a specific gravity tester - few bucks at CT, looks like a turkey baster. This will tell you the condition of the battery. At 5 yo, you probably need a new one. Don't advise CT batteries, there's been many posts here on this. Interstate, Trojan etc seem to be popular. Boat batteries take a beating on the water so don't last as well as in the car. A big thing is to check the water level at least twice during the season and before storage.

Post by **Eagle** » Tue Apr 25, 2006 12:12 pm

UPDATE

Engine battery is toast. Contacted the manufacture and they want me to run a couple of tests on the charger that is not described in the manual. Test one both banks passed. The second test takes 4.5 to 5 hours. At about 4.5 hours it started to rain and did not think it was a good idea to leave the unit plugged in since it is outdoors. Will try again after work today or Weds.

The other battery did take the full cycle of charging, but the output is only 13volts instead of 13.5volts. Does this mean it is on its way out as well?

Thanks again for the help.

Eagle

Post by **ady** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 7:17 am

Was the 13v measured when connected to the battery?? if so, the state of the battery will affect the reading as internal resistence will come into play. If not, talk to the manufacturer. If the other battery is good, I suspect your charger is okay. Check the acid sg as previously posted, you could be going through a lot of trouble trying to charge a dead battery!!.

Post by **Eagle** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 11:59 am

Been in contact with the charger manufacturer who had me run a couple of tests. The charger seems to have passed both. Took the suspect battery to a local auto parts store. Hooked it up and it did not have enough charge to run the battery test.

So, it appears that it is a dead battery problem. Going to let the boat dealer have a shot at the battery first. Will be next week before I have a chance to do anything as it looks now.

Thanks for the input.

Eagle