Trojan Boat Forum

I noticed I have the port amp meter charging right up to the top of the green 15.7 volts and the starboard is running in the normal range about 13volts. Last year I replaced the voltage regulator on the port engine as the old one had overheated and melted all over the place due to a bad ballast resistor. I'm not sure if this new voltage regulator is letting the battery charge higher or if the battery is taking a larger charge because it is going bad.

I have not tried swapping the voltage regulators yet or swapping batteries to see if the problem moves to the other side.

Both batteries are the same brand and age at 3.5 years so I am leaning towards one battery going bad early because of the ballast resistor and voltage regulator problem I had last year. Both batteries are kept charged over the winter with a electronic battery charger and the fluid levels are good.

I'll test the voltages this weekend.

Any suggestions?

Use an Voltmeter/ammeter and check the batteries.... That reading suggests to me that you may have a battery that is not holding it's charge.
Best way to check your instruments is with one of those instruments directly at the battery connections.... what reading do you get when not being charged? If less than 12.7V then your battery may not be holding the charge. The battery has correct fluid levels?
Also you can take it to your local battery shop and have them do a load test to see if it may have a bad cell.

I changed sides with the batteries and the voltage that the port engine is charging is still the same at 15.7 volts it takes a very long time running until it drops back into the normal range. The starboard side charges at 13.5 volts and drops into the 12 volt range soon after the engine starts.
Next is to change the voltage regulator over to the other engine to see if that is what the issue is. It never over charges into the red but it is just charging more than the other side. Maybe because the voltage regulator is new?

Any suggestions?

The new one went bad to, had a chevelle with the old style set up changed it over to a one wire set up. Regulated ones like that suck (imo) I'd change it to the more updated one.