battery troubles

sweet E mocean · Post by **sweet E mocean** » Tue May 26, 2009 1:48 pm

Hi guys
Heres a question for some of you veteran trojan owners . This past weekend was the first weekend spent on the boat with no shore power i ran the gen for about an hour sunday evening and mid day on monday my house battery was dead . the batteries are both new i've noticed that the house side seems to go dead very quick when i bought this boat so i replaced the batteries and still no luck !

guglielmo6160 · Post by **guglielmo6160** » Tue May 26, 2009 1:59 pm

your obviously not charging the batteries, start from the basics, check your charger, ? does it work, are you leaving any heavy consumers on , to drain your battery? if the answers to these questions is yes to the charger and no to the consumers, than it has to be charging, ,
and everything should be ok, assuming you installed two new or known good batteries, I had a similar problem , but I know that my house battery was no good, I replaced and now all is good

sweet E mocean · Post by **sweet E mocean** » Tue May 26, 2009 2:09 pm

yes the charger is working and i checked everything to make sure nothing was left on .

guglielmo6160 · Post by **guglielmo6160** » Tue May 26, 2009 2:12 pm

well , thats strange, are the charger wires hooked up directly to the batteries? if so , what kind of voltage are you showing, while the charger is on? its pretty basic, it has to work.

jav · Post by **jav** » Tue May 26, 2009 2:45 pm

I understand your request but to be of any real help, real numbers are needed such as:

Battery type and size:
How do you know when it's completely "charged"?
What does "dead" mean?
Have you measured battery voltage after full charge and 1 hour of rest (unhooked)?
Have you measured if there is any current draw on the battery with a current meter?

randyp · Post by **randyp** » Tue May 26, 2009 4:45 pm

Jav's got all the right questions. Just from a quick glance I can figure that one hour on the gen is not going to be enough to charge a deep cycle battery to carry you over 24 hours, if you have draw on the battery. Knowing the size, type and amp hour rating of the house battery is important, as well as what the typical amp draw will be in an hour. The trusty Norcold fridge can be a battery sucker, especially the older models.

sweet E mocean · Post by **sweet E mocean** » Wed May 27, 2009 8:43 am

yeah the frig is not run on 12 volts . i have to check for a draw but not sure where to start as everything in the boat stays off most of the time

randyp · Post by **randyp** » Wed May 27, 2009 9:05 am

JIm

From you last post I see you have an F32. That's a good start. Why not list what you have running off the batteries and either I or one of the other members can weigh in with some recommendations for battery types and sizes.

What do you have:

Refrigerator - type, brand, model, etc, Just in case it is an AC/DC model
Stereo - wattage to the speakers
Lights - how many DC, and what is the total wattage
VHF - amps or wattage on both receive and send
Inverter - wattage
Other appliances or DC electrical

Then, what type of batteries do you have
Size (group 24, 29, 31, etc)
CCA (Cold Cranking Amps)
Reserve Amps
Amp Hour Rating

Most starting batteries are high in CCA and low in reserve amps. Most deep cycles are low iin CCA but high in AH or RA.

Agitator · Post by **Agitator** » Wed May 27, 2009 9:08 am

Battery issues can be serious so take a sanity check.
How many house batteries and are they the size and type that can take the drain of a weekend on the hook? Are the cables clean and tighten? All cables need to be removed, cleaned and retightened periodically. Its amazing how just sitting you can loose connection. Do you charge them completely ( are you sure!) "There was nothing on" is a fatal saying! Check, check again and then have somebody else check. There's always something. Bilge pumps have to run too much, toilets, stereo, water system, nav lites, is that nite lite still on? If you are SURE nothing is on, and you don't have a way to measure current draw, loosen a positive battery cable and lightly touch the cable end to the battery post. If it sparks something is pulling current.

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