Macklin - I need a break, I'm an ME not an EE

what I meant was..... I would think that the biggest amp draw (next to starting) is using the drive trim pumps. I would hope that it is wired so that one battery is assigned to each pump (drive), except in the all positon. If both pumps are slaved on one battery, WTH??? I may just take my chances on all

Kentz,

My 95 is a 454 efi motor....I will try the routine suggested to pinpoint how its wired...but its been on all, all for ALL these years.

thanks.

Jeff

Kentz - WTF does that mean?

Maybe Bill or Vyper will weigh in here.....but I am almost positive that both trim and tab pumps run off the starboard battery. When either are activated only the starboard amp meter goes down. I sometimes bring both the tabs and drives up at the same time (after tabs have reached about 5), but I find that to activate all four pumps at the same time draws my amp meter down so low I tend not to do it. It got really bad when my terminals were corroded from the problem mentioned above.

In the Trade, we are ME-Mechanical Engineer / EE - Electrical Engineer :
Hey, I don't doubt any of your guys words. As soon as I can get out and run, I'll try all the tests. It appeared to be fine, as I mentioned above. I know that all the loads can't be as clean as 50-50 sharing, but, each drive trim pump/K-plane pump should be slaved to its own respective battery and not all of them wired to one, unless the switches are in ALL

Hey, I'm in the trade too. I'm an architect which means I know even less than you about this stuff. But I agree with what you're saying. Let us know what your volt meters tell you when you play with the trim and tab switches. (At least I got the name of the gauge right this time!)

I have never paid attention to that. They work fine, so NO WORRIES, right.

I was tracking down a Alternator problem this weekend and remembered this thread about the switches. I found my switches were wired up O.K. but what was driving me crazy is that I still had 12vdc on position #2 with the battery disconected. I figured it must of been a acc. I had wired up causing the back feed soooo after a half hour of head scratching and searching all over for this source it hit me The battery charger was turned on
Now what I don't understand is how could running them in all effect the Alternator 12vdc is 12vdc no matter where the source I would think that one may shutdown (thinking the batt was charged) and let the other do the work but I can't see how it could hurt it. I would think that you would have to have a high current overcharge situation to smoke the alternator.
But Hey I'm just a ET not a EE

If you have the time I would also like to see a copy of the schematic to confirm what I have found.
Thanks, Scott

[email protected]

Gee,
Here I thought I was the only one who was having battery switch problems!!!! I never heard about not having 'em in the ALL position, that's the way mine came when I got the boat, and I was running them that way until this year when my batteries died. I ended up putting stbd on # 1, port on #2 to eliminate the .5 amp draw and ordering a couple of AGM batteries from MK battery, they are SWEEEET, no more electrolyte to spill! I'd still like to know where the draw is coming from, I know the stereo doesn't take that much to maintain the memory.

Macklin, can you e-mail me that wiring write up ,too?

[email protected]

Mine are the same as boatheads and seem to be working OK. Starboard battery may need to be replaced, I'll see if it holds a charge for next time out. So, since I ran in all, which battery was getting charged, does it split into percentages? I now notice my ampmeters are slightly different readings, they were always pegged at 14V

were ya been boathead?, welcome back

Just been too darn busy, kinda got into a lot of "honeydo" projects and stuff, built a new computer for "Flight Sims" and just lost track of all my "Favorites" like OSO, but now you're stuck with me again.

Macklin, thanks for the wiring info, I'll have to dive into that next. With the switches in the correct postions, i'm not getting any current draw, but I still want to figure out why it pulls amps in the "all" position. Kentz, sound like you and me have similar reading on the volt meter, have you checked for amperage leaks from your batteries in the various switch postions? This is how I determined which setting to leave 'em in without a schematic, I don't want to ruin these new AGM batteries at $155 a pop!!!!! I'll post after I figure out what's going on.

Good to be back,
Paul