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cajunangler.
Hey guys my buddies PII has been draining start battery. Battery has been replaced and load tested system is three bank onboard charger for 36 volt troll and seperate charger for cranking batt.. He has 200 opti with a group 27 800 cca batt. problems started with graph turning off and then worked there way to killing the battery mid dayweve been replacing batteries and chasing the problem for a while.The boats electrical is a fair mess with smartcraft tapped into existing harness so now if you charge the batt. and let it sit for a hadful of days the starting batt. will drain. We removed the stereo and any unnessasery wiring we could find , we had a starting buddy added ( one of those deals that pulls power from the trolling motor when the starting batt. dies). Now mid day he is loosing start power and having dead trolling motor issues.I pretty sure there is a sugnificant drain on the starting side any suggestions where i should start to look and how ??
Most of the parasitic drain is found with a voltmeter set fo milliamps. You hook the two leads off the meter in line, and read the digital drain in milliamps on the meter. The millamps of drain are varying and if you have a stator or regulator issue, then you have a potential of a drain or not charging while running. What are the input volts when he is running? Get the volts when he is hammered above about 3500 RPMs. Also what battery does he have, as if it is a standard 27 series case we dont think it is enough to supply a long day on the water, depending on the battery of course. We have been moving everyone over to AGM batteries for a few years now. We just use more juice than we ever though on a boat today. Lets start with the milliamp drain on each individual lead from the battery, and go from there. Also there are no Pantera II models in 2003, so let us know what model and dash assembly it is. BCB
Oops! 02 not my boat, the batt. is a interstate group 27 cranking i believe 800 cca not sure about storage cap. and we are talking tourny when in use lcx 28 front and back on re-circ , airrator and so on. The thing is it ran all this stuff then slowely started killing everything the mechanic ( good shop just cant justify the time it would take to weed through this stuff ) checked out the motor / alt. systems A O.K. so we are back to checking for drain. I will try to check mili amp meter see if i can find something obvious. Now can this starting buddy kill T.M. side no problem there till after that was installed.This kid can Win with a boat that needs to come in at noon for repairs imagine what he could do if it ran till 3:30Oh Yeah and i am certainly not addressing this as BCB problem the boat has had three owners and i am just trouble shooting thanks
No Pantera II models in 2002 either. None since the late 90s till recent models.Madgaffer, try looking at each individual wire on the battery for a drain. Then record what those levels are. Once you have that data add it all up. Though we are suspect of the battery, and we do not like any of the dispersion systems that use trolling batterys for back up. You can just use a short set of jumper cables to pump it up if you need it. This is like trying to cover up a potential problem. A very high percentage of batteries are sub standard also. So just because it is new, does not indicate it is quality and if it is a (N)Everstart, then all bets are off. We have preached quality cranking batteries for a long time now, and we keep preaching it. BCBLast edited by Bass Cat Boats on May 31st, 2010, 5:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Not to interrupt but a test light is much easier to find a short or a drain with than a voltmeter. A test light will light up on much less drain than a normal run of the mill multimeter will show.This is from 50 yrs. working with DC voltage.Johnny
Johnny, A test light will not show parasitic drain, as it does not register the amount of current, only that there is current. Which is a known fact on this instance. Milliamp drains like we are speaking of would not register on a test light. This is a totally different situation than looking for the loss of voltage, this is looking to see how much is flowing to a particular item. Which is parasitic voltage drain when the item is sitting static and unused. A milliamp reading will go far lower than the bulb on a test light will even trickle. To verify this see how many milliamps your test light is burning when it is lit up or put a meter in line and check the reading when you think you have a low amperage or voltage situation. We need those numbers on the drain to see what the total is. Then we can calculate the amount of amperage it will pull and estimate the amount of life a battery will have sitting idle. BCB
O.K. let me make sure i understand checking parasitic drain , i need to hook up my multi meter to each connection that goes directely to the start battery inline on the neg side / or pos side ? and total up the mili amps. What kind of usage would be out of line suggesting a problem? As far as model he says its an 03 but i must be confused if it is a PII or a Classic or what i know it has the new style panel like on my 08 couger and the older switches for the pro air. I thought that jumper set up might be a bandaid as it has proven to be , i will try to add up milliamp this evening.
Just like TXUex I am not trying to interfere but there is fairly basic wiring in most boats. I agree with the idea of removing the radio since it could have used a minimal amount of juice holding preset stations or clock info. The other big current draws in the boat are pumps, graphs and lights. If he has interior compartment lighting you want to check and see if any are running all the time. Probably a little difficult since you cant see them inside the compartments but if they use mercury switches they shouldnt kick on until the lid is several inches open. ie Park the boat in a dark garage and slightly open lids to see if that is the culprit. As BCB says a multimeter may be your best & last method for determining where the draw is coming from but I wanted to offer that idea in the hopes it is something simple.
Yes, and positive flows, so use those wires. The master should be off and remove each individual wire and measure from battery to the wire itself. You place the meter between the lead and battery post. For example an Opti should have from 12 to 18 milliamps of drain. We gave seen more, though it depends on how much as to what the issue is.
I forgot, if you want to know what year the boat is get the serial number off the transom of the boat. I believe the last two digits will indicate the year, but I am sure BCB can correct me if I remembered incorrectly.
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