It seems my winter battery scheme has failed ?

[rpmerrill]

I have bragged numerous times that I leave my batteries connected on the boat and that the solar panel keeps enough trickle charge available to keep all four batteries happy. Even through the shrink wrap.

Ten days ago I stopped by for my first visit since the shrink wrap was installed. (The next day I had to leave town for a week.). Sure enough the house showed zero volts. Thruster and engine were at about 12.7. Crap.
I switched over to "parallel" for a few minutes and the voltage popped up, but you could see that it was drawing the good batteries down. I switched off the "parallel", closed everything back up and left the diagnosis to now.

Besides turning everything off for winter, I even pull the fuses for the CO and gas detectors. It has worked great for the past three winters, until now. I bought the boat in the spring of 2016. The previous owner had replaced all four batteries in 2015. My batteries had light use over the past four summers, especially compared to the previous owners. They had put over 7000 miles on the odometer cruising the ICW round trip, twice. I've spent very few nights on the hook.

I'll be going down diagnose the problem this week. Taking my volt meter and and my long extension cord and shore power cords to put some power to the boat and observe the charging over several hours. Parallel switch on or off. I seem to remember something about the relays that interconnect the batteries and the charger. Do I need to bypass the relays ? Leave the parallel switch ON ? Or would a set of jumper cables work ?

OR should I just get out my checkbook and buy two new house batteries. OR a full set of four?

 

[knotflying]

Put the Parallel to on so that the relays will kick in. once they are at minimum voltage you can turn the parallel off. You need to figure what caused the drain. Off the top of my head it could be one of the bilge pumps or the shower drain pump.
I prefer disconnecting the batteries during a long layover.

 

[Pilotnavigator]

Seems that disconnecting the ground cables from all batteries is the best bet. Make sure all are fully charged first. You can find out what happens to yours with clamp meter that will measure the current in any line. Also keeping the batteries connected runs the risk of one bad battery draining the others. A short in one cell will kill all the batteries connected to it.
The clamp meter will also show the current your solar array is putting out under various conditions.

 

[BB marine]

I actually had a similar battery issue but charging was done differently. I store in heated storage. I normally go to do general maintenance or projects on the boat while in storage. When I go to the boat I plug it in and turn the charger on. In previous years 2016 to 2019 batteries always showed 12.6V all four. This could be as much as two or three weeks. Last January I went to the boat and the voltage on the house batteries was 9V, Engine and thruster were at 12.6. House battery has nothing that runs off of it when switch is off. Thruster battery powers CO, Bilge pump alarm, and bilge pumps, Engine powers LPG solenoid. These systems are all powered with battery switch off. Both of these batteries were fine. I recharged the house batteries by exciting them with the crossover switch so the battery charger would "see" the batteries and start charging them. The house batteries came up to 13.5 volts with the charger. I then disconnected both house batteries and left them for a week. When I rechecked them a week later I found one of the batteries to be fully discharged 9V and the other at 12.4V. The battery had a bad cell and it was in a parallel circuit so it discharged the other battery. The bad battery basically damaged the good battery by pulling it into a full discharge. I could have disulfide the marginal battery and brought it back but decided to replace all batteries with AGM's. I had original factory installed maintenance free. I'm still on the fence about installing the AGM's cost more and the difference in weight AGM battery 67 lbs ea.,Centennial maintenance free 44lbs. I added 92 more lbs to the stern in a weight sensitive boat. The AGM's are supposed to have a better service life and better charging characteristics but...... I'm still on the fence. Good luck troubleshooting your battery issue.

 

[rpmerrill]

Unless it was a stuck float or sensor the shower or bilge pumps wouldn't be the issue. I'm not in the water and I have the plug removed. Bilge is dry.

The last couple seasons I have been tracking the solar amps at various weather conditions. I'd have to check my logbook but I'm recalling about half an amp on most days. It seemed to be enough to hold them all winter. (My solar controller has an amp and volt display.)

BB marine: That is all really good advice. I'll bet one battery killed the other. Your method of isolating the bad one sounds great. I already have AGM's from previous owner. So new AGM's would be in order and I would probably want to (have to) replace both. I'd recon that the house batteries get the most use and the others seem to be quite happy for now. Besides, If the thruster battery suddenly went bad I should be able to operate without it, however somewhat sloppily. And if the engine battery suddenly quits, I would still have the parallel switch available to get me home. Gotta dig out the wiring diagram to study up. Parallel connects all batteries together to perform all functions???

Oh, one more thing, I have heard a couple different variations on the story of which battery feeds which aux piece of equipment. I really should know that and write it down. That's something to do while I'm sitting around watching the batteries charge this week.

Thanks to all.
Keep 'em coming.
rich

 

[rpmerrill]

I spent a long time putting together a detailed description of what I found. Then when it came time to post it, It seems like I had been timed out or something. I had to re-sign in and then my big long posting had fallen into the ether. Crap.

Here goes the short version.
I connected to shore power and started charging all 4 batts yesterday. The charger was doing 10-12 amps at 14+ volts.
The ACR relays showed "combined" right away. I didn't need to use my jumper cables.
Ran for 5 hours. When I returned the Thruste and Engine bats were both 12.9 volts.
House was 12.2 still onthe charger. But the charger was indicating 20 amps at almost 13 volts.
It had 2 out of 3 cooling van speed lights lit. Must have been working hard considering we had ~50F ambient.

I noticed that the ACR connected to house was no longer combined. The engine and thruster were resting and happy.
All 20 amps were going to the house. The jumper between the two was carrying 16 amps. So the first battery was getting 4 amps. Batt#2 was sucking all the amps up. A sign that #2 was the bad one???

I turned off the charger and disconnected them both from each other. #1 voltage dropped quickly to 10 volts and #2 went to about 8. After 15 minutes they were both down to 7.5. While measuring the voltage I noticed that #2 was hot. My IR thermometer read 110 -130 degrees in various places on top of #2. Not good??? Batt#1 was 75-85 degrees. That has to reinforce the idea that #2 is the problem.

Went back this AM, both were at 4.2 volts. I'd say both are bad.
I think Brian's advice is correct. Batt#2 had a bad cell and it killed batt#1. Maybe If I had caught it earlier I could have saved #1 but I'd say it is gone now. It was the bad cell in #2 that was shorted and heating it up.

Regardless, I've read that it is best to replace both of them. I'm not too worried about the thruster and engine batteries. They have had an easy life. I'll give them a chance knowing that my parallel switch will help if needed.

Good news: West Marine is having a sale until tomorrow. They must be psychic. I'll have two new ones by the end of the week.

Anyway thanks to all that chipped in and we're still open to more comments. Hope this helps someone else too.

 

[Captain Nice]

I found that the “memory” for the Fusion stereo was a constant drain, although small, even with EVERYTHING switched off.

CN

 

[rpmerrill]

Hmmm. I've never checked the Fusion. I know it didn't have any continuous power when I bought the boat but the wire was there and i hooked it up. It keeps station memory as far as I know. There are only one or two stations that I listen to... I mostly listen to my Sirius XM thru my Fusion. I keep my house battery on all summer so I don't really know if the memory is still powered directly or not. Sounds like a good project to check where to amps are coming from.

Also same story for the TV memory. I unplug that for the winter. I ought to check the current draw on both devices. Do you have any numbers?

I think I mentioned that the gas valve and the CO detector are constantly powered. I pull those fuses in the winter.

 

[scross]

Rich,
I understand this is a fair amount of extra work but...
I’d recommend using your two brand new batteries for engine and thruster and rotating the current engine and thruster batteries to house duty. This way you will have the newest batteries serving the most critical functions.
We have four house batteries (6 total) and I replace engine and thruster batteries every year, rotating those batteries to house duty.

 

[rpmerrill]

Reading my brochures.
Gas Valve/Alarm current draw: 55 milliamps on standby and 75 milliamps with the valve open.

CO Alarm current draw: 16 milliamps

Well, even at it's worst possible case we're talking less than a tenth of an amp.
This really shouldn't be a big deal at all. Pulling those fuses is really a waste of time.
Still looking for the data on TV and Radio memory.

 

[rpmerrill]

Ya, I thought of that (switching the old boys to the house positions). It would give me a chance to "lube" and clean the terminals. They are clean in very nice condition, I think.
However, putting new boys on the house would give me max house draw that I hope to do this summer with some longer trips. Starting power doesn't worry me too much because I have the parallel switch that dumps all the house power onto the engine battery for emergency starting. I suppose I would have trouble if the engine battery went dead at the same time I drew down the house all the way. Possible but unlikely. What could go wrong? I'll have to think about it over the next two months.

Thanks
rich

 

[Captain Nice]

Do you have any numbers?

I believe the Fusion owner’s manual has a memory draw value; I won’t be near mine until Wednesday to verify. I do know that my house battery would draw down significantly more when the memory had power than when it did not, over 3-4 weeks.

CN

 

[Maggie Anne]

Are the engine and house batteries the same and able to be swapped? I'm asking because I thought that the requirements for high amps during engine starting required a different type of battery than the house batteries.

 

[scross]

Maggie Ann,
Flooded batteries come in three types - Starting, dual-purpose and deep cycle. Typically you would buy starting batteries for engine and thruster use and deep cycle type for house use. I use dual purpose for everything. Not optimal but it allows me to rotate out batteries over a three year period. I don’t think I lose much in battery performance with dual purpose batteries over using the starting and deep cycle.
The previous owner had installed starting batteries for everything and they worked fine when we first 2 years after we bought the boat.

 

[Wee Venture]

Reading my brochures.
Gas Valve/Alarm current draw: 55 milliamps on standby and 75 milliamps with the valve open.

Remember that this value is just for the gas detection system and associated pad (when the valve is open an additional led is lit). I believe the solenoid itself draws close to an amp.

 

[rpmerrill]

With the valve open the other LED IS lit.
The only part I didn't worry about is the current draw with the alarm sounding.

 

[Wee Venture]

With the valve open the other LED IS lit.
The only part I didn't worry about is the current draw with the alarm sounding.

I’m not questioning that you have your bases covered. I’m just pointing out, for anyone else reading the post, that the higher amperage spec for “valve open” is only taking into account the additional LED and does not include the solenoid. The Xintex gas detection device does not presume what solenoid will be used and therefore cannot give an amperage spec for that. On our boat the Xintex gas detection and the solenoid are on the same fuse. Therefore if you leave the fuse in and inadvertently leave the solenoid on, the draw will be more like one amp than 75 milliamps. We have our propane system connected to the house bank which is rated at 440 amp hours. A one amp draw all by itself will pull the bank down to 50% in about 9 days. On many installations, the system is connected to the engine battery so of course this would be depleted a lot faster.

 

[rpmerrill]

Aha, the solenoid. I'll accept that.
I'll have to go back to the literature to see if they have an explanation for not talking about it.
Thanks
r

 

[BB marine]

When everything is working properly and all batteries are in good condition the system works flawlessly. A Ranger or Cutwater owner has a turn key operation. When something isn't working properly, battery condition poor, loose connection, corrosion, auto bilge pump switch fail closed, LP solenoid fail closed, fusion memory/NRX powering the N2K backbone and auto pilot or any other type of small amp draw, slowly drawing the batteries capacity down. The knowledge of where the source of (24/7) 12V+ battery power is coming from is helpful in troubleshooting. From the different topics about electrical issues posted on TugNuts I have come to the conclusion that there wasn't/isn't a standard design through out the production line when it comes to electrical schematics and installs. I know the C26, C28, C30 All 3 batteries have some sort of 24/7 draw.( House battery stereo memory), (engine battery LP solenoid/alarm,+ C28 and C30 engine hatch) ( thruster battery CO, auto bilge pumps, auto bilge alarm). ( C24 has all 24/7 circuits coming from house.) Some Rangers have the windlass powered by the house battery some by the thruster battery.Some Rangers use house and thruster for 24/7 and do not use the engine battery. When troubleshooting a 24/7 draw look at the schematics for your specific model. Confirm the factory install matches the schematics. If it doesn't make a note of the differences. It will make it easier to disable 24/7 circuits if needed and to troubleshoot. Step #1 in troubleshooting battery issues and voltage losses. Is the battery in good condition? Charge it, let it sit, load test it. Many times the small voltage losses are from a compromised battery.

 

[Captain Nice]

Do you have any numbers?

I believe the Fusion owner’s manual has a memory draw value; I won’t be near mine until Wednesday to verify. I do know that my house battery would draw down significantly more when the memory had power than when it did not, over 3-4 weeks.

CN

In a single, loose, "addendum" page included with my Fusion manual, it states the Standby (memory) mode's current draw is 150mA. It ALSO states that this mode can be switched off by going to Settings and "un-ticking" the standby mode box; who knew! I presume "Standby-on" is a Fusion factory setting, as I doubt Ranger would take the time to enable this function during installation. I will be monitoring my House battery voltage over the next few weeks to see if this indeed eliminates the draw.

CN