Battery question

[vickyb]

Here are the facts:

1. Battery indicated FULL when I left shore
2. Went out on the lake at low crusing speed (about 10 knots) for about 15 mins.
3. SWITCHED OFF ENGINES
4. Dropped anchor and was fishing for about 30 mins. Listening to Radio
5. Checked battery. It was at 90%
6. Used the trailer button to get engine up to remove weeds
7. Started up and Trawled for about 20 mins.
8. Cut engines and fishing again for 30 minutes. RADIO was ON, so was depth guage.
9. Tried to start up but battery was 30% and would NOT FIRE engines. Had to use emergency boost to start both engines.
10. Got engines going and went into port. Took 10 minutes. Doing 22 knots
11. Checked battery. It had not budged. 30%... did not charge AT ALL
12. Plugged into shore power for FIVE MINUTES.
13. UNPLUGGED shore power. Battery showed 100%

Any ideas?

Thanks much

[Allen Sr]

Alternator? Broken wire? Bad cell or cells in battery I say that cause to go from 30% to 100% in FIVE minutes even 15 min there is something fishy. I would have the battery load tested and see what that shows you. Then check your charging system.

[prowlersfish]

I agree , sounds like a alternator issue . I would check the charging systems , connections on the batteries (clean and tight ) and test the batteries .

[Stripermann2]

Yep, as stated above from Allen and Paul, test battery and charging system. Having voltage in a battery is much different than having cranking and reserve amperage in a battery. Also check battery connections and grounds to be sure they are clean and tight.

[vickyb]

Thank you all for your responses. Is this something I can do myself? How would I test the battery?

Thanks

[g36]

you'll need to remove them. if you dont want to pull the batteries and take them to autozone,advance etc you could get this. it wouldnt be a bad idea anyway because occasionally you may need to check voltage and condition of batteries and is not that much money to buy. i have one similiar and have helped out alot of my friends on the dock with their batteries also

http://www.amazon.com/Schumacher-BT-100 ... oad+tester

[Big D]

Agree with all of the above but I'm leaning to bad connections.......battery charged at shore from 30% to 100% in "FIVE MINUTES"?....NO WAY!! Certainly you should have the batteries tested but there's more going on here than just the possibility of a bad battery. You can't charge a depleated battery in 5 minutes. Poor connections however could give you the impression that you did, and cause all the symptoms you described.

[vickyb]

Thank you everyone for your responses. As it turns out, the connections were bad and I spent some time on it this weekend and it seems to be good now. However, interestingly, I have only two batteries on this boat. They are starting batteries. One each connected to each of the engines. Seems I need two deep cycle at least for running the internal items when I am on board.