Battery Issues
 

Guys,

I’ve been starting to get the boat ready for the start of the season, including a couple projects I’ve mentioned, and happened to notice one of the batteries has not been charging. I’ve got one of these:

Battery charger/tender

And it has been working fine for a couple years now. But this season it’s not acting right. When I checked, the port battery was showing yellow/faulty on the charger, while the starboard charger was showing solid green/charged. Port battery checks ~11.3v while the starboard battery checks 13.5, both checked while not charging. Assuming the port battery was dead/junk, but wanting to make sure, I swapped the connections. Now both batteries show yellow., even after switching the leads back. I checked the port battery while on charge, and it made little difference, maybe 11.4-11.5v.

Port battery is at most two years old. Starboard battery was new last year. Boat’s been in my shop all winter, and has not seen less than 60 degrees or so.

Thoughts?

Thanks. Brad.

11.3 on a "charged" battery is ng. Battery is junk, if your charger is working property.

UnderPsi,

That’s my dilemma. I’m not sure the charger is working properly. I was hoping someone might have some insight before I start needlessly burning cash.

Thanks. Brad.

Put a different charger on it and see if it charges it up ?? That would be the first thing I would do. Somebody you know must have a charger you can borrow. Are you charging them on the bench or in the boat ? I would take them out and charge them separately on the bench.

My onboard charger will not charge the battery if it goes below a certain voltage which is pretty much almost dead at that point. Try connecting a regular charger to it for a few hours and then turn the tender back after removing the charger. This has always worked for me with my shore power onboard chargers.

Reading the reviews on that charger does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling. Use a known good charger or buy a battery load tester.

Ryan,

It was all but an impulse buy from Walmart. Maybe it’s served its purpose for the investment.

Recommendations?

Thanks. Brad.

Bill, Bencini,

I didn’t pull the battery, but it is isolated. I put a standard trickle charger on it. I’ll check on it Monday morning.

Thanks. Brad.

Each cell is 2.2V.

13.5 - 11.3= 2.2. Think you have lost a cell. Hopefully you have some warranty left on it.

Brad,

Assuming lead acid batts? Sometimes they need a bigger hit than a 2A trickle charge to wake them up.

2yrs is a very short time, and both being faulty is unlikely.

The new switching style chargers of course won't start charging unless they have a reasonable voltage to sense at batt. I always keep an older 12v transformer charger around to feed the 12v voltage to get the 'smart' charger going.

You could also get them charged up and tested before you throw them back in for the season.
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They go bad but put new battery or buy a jumper box small and
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...cab629d486.jpg
they work well

Most folks forget about the extra 0.2V on a lead acid cell.

But I can't see that both batts have a dead cell.

Tartilla,

Yes. Lead acid. One is a Walmart EverStart Maxx, 29 series, the other is a store brand from Sun Auto in Sumerset, KY, 27 series. It’s my intention to replace the 27 with another 29 when it goes bad. After getting a better look at things, it’s the newer one (the 29) that is exhibiting the odd behavior. I had them backwards in my OP.

I don’t keep the habit of removing the batteries from the boat for winter. I usually just put the tender on them and leave them for the winter. As I said, the boat is kept climate controlled.

We don’t have a set winterizing date, since I keep it indoors, and we’ve been know to take advantage of those random Indian summer days. I also sometimes fail to put the tender on them during the summer, because we take it out on a fairly regular basis (might have to change this habit). It may have taken me awhile to get the charger on them after putting it away for what turned out to be the last time. Memory is fuzzy sometimes. I have a suspicion they are both fine. I just have to wake them up.

We’ll see how it goes Monday morning.

Thanks. Brad.

I gave up on those tenders.

If your interested; https://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/...l-battery.html

UnderPsi,

I’m not really sure what I’ve got is a “tender” as such, but more of what you suggested there, just a much cheaper (price and quality) version.

I may have to take you up on that. Let me chew on it a bit.

Thanks. Brad.

2 out of 5 star rating for that battery tickler :)

Sounds like just the port batt. When you remove a fully charged batt from a tender/trickler type charger for a bit then re-attach, its normal for the yellow light to come on for a while before switching to green. I have 5 trickle chargers from 4 different manufs and they all act like that. I suspect the starboard batt will go green if left on trickle charger for a while.

If no joy by Monday, I'd take it back to the store. They will do a quick charge then a load test.

I used to pull batts for winter, but haven't done it for the last few years. Doesn't seem to make any difference. They stay on the maintainer all winter.

If batt isn't sealed, should verify water level is good. A specific gravity test would also be a good idea if you happen to have a tester handy.

Scott,

Yup. The war dept just read me the riot act about not checking reviews on it.

Hey…. It was a semi-impulse buy from Walmart that has lasted me two seasons. I’ll take that these days. But I am getting smarter.

Thanks. Brad.

ZZ,

Yup. It was just the port battery. At least until I swapped the leads. Then both stayed on “faulty yellow”, even after swapping them back. I’m hoping/thinking it’s just the charger that has gone south, if it’s not just that they were allowed to discharge too far before hooking them up. We’ll see.

Thanks. Brad.

Just noticed you're using a 2 bank charger. I have no experience with those. Could be one side died and the other may be affected too??

I bought these single batt maintainers abt 8 years ago from Walmart. They have worked flawlessly on my Interstate marine Batts. On season 6 this year.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...394d0ddbce.jpg

ZZ,

Yup. It really is a cool little unit, even if cheap. It’s lightweight, so we just keep it on the boat, but it’s not mounted. It’s just where we are with the boat. When we take the boat to the Cumberland, we have to option of booking it up if we need to, and don’t have to keep it in mind when prepping to leave.

I’m really thinking about taking UnderPsi up on his.

Thanks. Brad.

I've had meh luck with the small, under 2 amp trickle chargers on larger batteries...they seem to be fine on smaller batteries like what is in my Sea Doos, lawnmowers, and motorcycles...so I went with this NOCO 10 amp dual bank charger, it works much better with the AGM batteries in the boat. There was one time last summer that, after a long day of listening to the stereo whilst coved out, that the 'house' battery didn't charge up overnight...to the point I though the less-than-2 year old battery was bad. Had some bad weather move in that kept the boat in the slip for another day, on the charger and voila', it came back fully to life. Weird.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...417aa47dcc.jpg

^^^^My experience too with 2amp and under chargers for smaller motorsports batteries and 10-20amp chargers for car/boat/etc batteries. My experience includes many hundreds of batteries probably. Disclaimer: Your experience may differ ^^^^^

I agree with what you said. I run a 10/10/10 three bank charger conected to shore power on our AT.

Guys,

So, after having both batteries on a standard charger overnight, both are showing 13v+, and back on the tender they both show 14v+. I think both batteries are OK, as is the tender, and that the predictions of the tender just not kicking in due to low voltage are correct.

I am falling in line with the lack of warm fuzzy over the tender, though, so I'm going to make that change, but keeping the tender in use until that change is implimented.

Thanks. Brad.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.off...7fc3f6af5.jpeg
I think we’re good.

i did take UnderPsi up on his offer for his charger, though.

Thanks. Brad.

To be fair, I only use the tenders to maintain the batts. They've had a pretty easy life. Got a real charger if a large batt is depleted.

Went thru a bunch of Diehard onboard chargers on my prev boat. Couldn't hardly get thru a season without one dying.

Love that NOCO. They have a great reputation. That's what I would install if I went with an onboard solution.