Battery charge longevity and Emergency start switch questions

I have got to make time to respond to Bill Goofball Kearney's ridiculous responses...

Please tell me people have not starting listing to his advice...
 
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Stray Cat said:
Indeed they have.....Mine is similar to Hack's with exception my generator cranks from the two batteries in parallel for the stbd engine....which is good because if you drain the port and house batteries (port batteries in paralell) you can still crank the genny and the E Start will work to crank the port if needed.

As a bonus, their DC wiring schematic matches what is actually on my boat!
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Yup, that's how mine are configured too. I have the original batts and have had zero issues. Emergency parallel start switch works great if needed. I once forgot and left the cabin fridge on the batts for six days. I thought they would be drained upon my return but the fridge was kicking along with the batts at 11.8V. I was mildy impressed that my Blue Moons were still cold.:thumbsup:
 
Four Suns said:
I have got to make time to respond to Bill Goofball Kearney's ridiculous responses...

Please tell me people have not starting listing to his advice...
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With you being absent for awhile, I am afraid a terrible new trend has come.
 
It is quite apparent that there are several different opinions on this topic floating around out there, so I will take this opportunity to toss in my $0.02 CAD.

IMO, my battery setup was totally unacceptable when I bought this boat last year. I am not even going to begin to tell you what it was or was not doing to me after a night on the hook other than my (3) batteries were basically flat and I needed to use my battery booster to get the show back on the road in the morning.

What I will say is that I went postal and removed the (3) original batteries + the original battery box, installed (4) new "Crown" Heavy Duty Deep Cycle CR-235 6 Volt batteries, (2 batteries in series to make 12 Volts X 2 to make 2 banks of batteries then paralleled together for all things requiring 12 Volts other than starting my engines, generator or operating my windlass) + installed (2) 12 Volt deep cycle batteries (1 dedicated to starting the engines & the other battery is dedicated to starting the generator and/or operate the windlass. I used deep cycle batteries here just because I already had a fresh set of them on hand. These two 12 Volt batteries are isolated from each other by a BEP Marine Voltage Sensitive Relay 710-300A) and I constructed a new battery box out of 3/4" Birch veneer plywood and soaked it with tongue oil to preserve it.

It goes without saying that some major re-wiring took place in the ER, but it was well worth the time & effort IMO. The "Emergency Start" switch parallels the engine battery with the generator battery. The "VSR" will never permit the generator battery to be drawn down by starting the engines and will have the generator battery "wait in line" to be be charged, when required, until the engine battery reaches a preset voltage of 13.7 Volts. The relay then closes and both batteries are charged together. If for some strange reason that my totally independent Heavy Duty house bank and/or the engine battery decide to unexpectedly take the deep six route, I will always have a fully charged generator battery standing by to either parallel itself with the engine battery or to simply start the generator and recharge all of the batteries. Problem solved ... now I can move onto other pressing issues like completing the FloScan installation.

When on the hook, we turn the temperature back on the fridge and use the cooler for cold drinks, etc. I also installed (2) L.E.D. bow rail-mount anchor lights that operate on their own rechargeable 1.5 Volt battery that gets recharged during the day by their own integral solar panel because the arch mount unit draws far too much power. I am hoping to find L.E.D. replacement bulbs to solve this problem or just completely change out the original anchor light fixture to one of the L.E.D. variety.

Although I have made some drastic moves here by departing from "The Sea Ray System", I feel that I have simplified an otherwise unworkable system that was not practical for my wants & needs. Whatever floats your boat, I always say sometimes. :)

~ Ken :smt024
 
My guess is what hack4aliving (we shall now call him "Smart Bill") has experienced and stated. You probably just have batteries that were run down a couple times (like once or twice) and they are toast... and by the way, that is not a warranty issue. Letting a flooded cell battery drain all the way is specifically a way to void most battery warranties I have read.

Which brings up the point that if you anchor out and depend on the "house" batteries such that they are going to be drained more than 25%, then you need to put batteries in that are designed for that. Sea Ray did not do that for you. The best option is to put in AGM style batteries which can be completely drained several hundred times before they go bad. If they are drained 50%, they can be cycled about 400 times (per Deka). Gel batteries have a much higher life span (can be cycled 1000's of times) but they require modification to the entire charging system (alternators, chargers, etc.) or you'll cook them. AGM's are really the way to go on a power boat like yours as they will work with your current charging set up. Gels are really good for sailboats...

The other thing that can make a battery die a quicker death is improper charging. Unlike Bill Goofball Kearny's advice, the alternator on the engine is NOT a good way to recharge a heavily discharged battery. The alternator works fine for recharging the battery from starting an engine but when a battery is discharged more than 25% or so, it needs to go through a charging profile to top it off properly. That's where the smart chargers come in... and why running the generator to charge the battery is better than starting up the engine.

As far as your emergency start button not working, I assume you had the port engine running when you used it? The emergency start button is nothing more than an easy way to jump the port batteries from the starboard ones. If the batteries are completely dead, then the running engine may have to be revved up a little and the batteries may need to sit on the charger a little bit before you can get enough juice. If you ever tried to jump a dead car battery in a car, you know what I'm talking about. It's harder in this case as you have TWO dead batteries sucking juice instead of one.

Now on to this morning's fun.


wkearney99 said:
It sounds like something's not wired right with your batteries. Should be something the dealer ought to address for a new boat like that.
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Yeah... Surely it's not something as simple as the batteries where completely discharged a couple times and are now shot. Did your dealer provide you with 2nd grade reading lessons so you could read the battery warranty? Or the smart charger/converter manual?


wkearney99 said:
While having a genset available to charge the batteries is convenient, that's also a job the main engines can do once they're started.
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No it's not. The alternators are not a good way to charge up heavily discharged batteries as they do not follow a charging profile to bring them back up to 100%. Alternators are fine for running electronics underway and bringing batteries back to normal for a discharge resulting from starting an engine but that's it. Read a manual... really... good info in them things.

wkearney99 said:
Well, for a new boat it'd be pretty hard for it NOT to be a warranty issue. That is unless someone (not the dealer) took the batteries out of the boat last winter and didn't reinstall them correctly. Who did it? And if they did it wrong then that has got to be corrected before you install any new batteries, lest those be ruined too.
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Right! You should be able to use equipment (in this case the batteries) in a way that is specifically pointed out in a warranty as a way to void it and then go run to the dealer and bitch! Wait... call Obama... maybe he can chase the bastards down and tax them.

wkearney99 said:
If the engines are equipped with appropriate alternators they most certainly should be able to be called upon to recharge ALL batteries on board. By what justification shouldn't they? To have to depend upon the genset seems like a bad idea. To be able to use it, sure, if an engine's (any of them) running it ought to be able to spare some of that energy to recharge the batteries. I've no idea where you get the idea that it's an either or proposition, that certainly wouldn't make sense. You're arguing against a point nobody's making.

As for rejiggering his whole battery setup, how about seeing the current problem solved first?
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What BS. Did I miss something? All the documentation and manuals associated with battery management that are out there are ALL WRONG per Bill Kearney.


To the original poster's question... Go read hack4aliving's responses... the solution to your problem is pretty simple. You need to do a "cool mod" and put more appropriate battery technology in your boat for the way you use it.

I went through what Mr. Smart Bill did several times before I finally switched to AGM's. I usually have the generator running all the time so I kept figuring flooded cells would be OK but they still can get drained with the 45,000,000 watts of 12v gizmos running (my charger/converter is undersized for all the crap I have added) and I destroyed several very heavy and expensive D batteries (like annually) before I switched to AGM... solved the problem.
 
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wkearney99 said:
That would leave more capacity available to the various accessories on the ships system circuits. These are recreational boats so it would seem appropriate to support the on-going operation of those systems.
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Gary,

Thanks for all the effort clearing this up, but can you explain to me the statement above? I have been trying to figure it out all week and it still does not make any sense to me...

Jon
 
J Levine said:
Gary,

Thanks for all the effort clearing this up, but can you explain to me the statement above? I have been trying to figure it out all week and it still does not make any sense to me...

Jon
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Are you taunting me? I think you are! I have no clue what the hell he meant by that...

I even have a dedicated battery for my generator. And the reason it's not a "waste of space" thing but because the generator will not run if the voltage is below 11 volts.... (electronic diesel). The generator will not run with a dead battery as it is sucking all the amps from the dinky alternator trying to recharge. Can't imagine that dinky alternator trying to put juice into a couple big house batteries while keeping enough juice for itself to operate. But that's on my boat. I would assume that on the OP's boat that the generator alternator can supply enough juice to two dead starting batteries and enough juice for the electronics on the gas generator engine to run (I probably shouldn't assume that though) such that they don't get stuck in a bad way like it would be on my 480. Point is... the dedicated generator battery may have more to do with this scenario and not just a convenience thing.
 
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Sounds like a bad cell - probably from water evaporating and exposing the metal. Check with a hydrometer. Having the boat on shore power means the battery charger is active - and recharging as/when needed which causes evaporation. I check often and need to add water about once every 2 months.
 
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