[jchemotti]

Hi,
Need some help with this darn battery issue before I have the boat towed to the marina.

Opening day prep: charged the battery with the charger box in the house. Started the boat with that battery the next day and drove it across the lake to our mooring and parked it - trip took about 5 minutes.

Week and a half later the battery didn't start the boat, used the jumper box to start it, drove the boat for 15 minutes and the battery went completely dead, all gauges turning off. Restarted the battery with the jumper box for the 2nd time that day, headed back home, 3 minutes later the battery died again. Jumped with box again, drove 2 minutes to the mooring.

Trying to troubleshoot my battery problem - if the boat is running, wouldn't the battery keep charging and not die out?

Or, am I wrong in thinking that, and the battery is just bad, resulting in it dying because it can't get to 100% charge?


Or, could it be some other problem that keeps it from getting the full charge?

Thanks in advance for your responses

[SEMIJim]

I responded to your previous thread on this same issue in quite some detail.

Jim

[DougR]

Question? (hope I'm not being a SmarA@@) But a battery is the heart of the charge system... If it is bad it needs to be changed prior to trouble shooting the enire system....

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[SEMIJim]

Originally Posted by DougR

Question? (hope I'm not being a SmarA@@) But a battery is the heart of the charge system... If it is bad it needs to be changed prior to trouble shooting the enire system....

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The heart of the charging system is the charger--be it the engine's alternator or shore power charger. He can start the boat off his jump box and have one of his answers in mere moments, using the voltmeter in the boat's instrument cluster, without having to charge the boat's battery first.

Here is my previous reply to the OP on the same issue: Battery question

It's pretty straight-forward.

I'm pretty certain what's happening is:

• Engine dies due to lack of electricity
• Battery recovers a bit after the load is removed (most will do that)
• He jump-box' the boat to start it (which probably slightly charges the boat's battery, too)
• The Battery has enough energy to power the engine's ignition system for a brief while
• Then, finally, it doesn't, and the engine dies

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Jim

[DougR]

Gotchya, I stand corrected.