bilge pump

M

Mstrlucky74

Member
Jul 6, 2015
191
NY
Boat Info
1998 sea ray 215 express cruiser
Engines
Mercruiser
So another boat problem ...uggghhh!
Got on boat and noticed I had a lot of water in bilge. Hit the bilge pump switch but noticed it was not coming on. I joyrides my blower and nothing else worked. I did turned the battery switch the other battery and I got juice( horn, blower etc.) but when I hit bilge pump switch I got nothing. I checked the battery and one of them were dead, but I couldn't see that the pump was wired directly to the battery.


Now I did noticed the bilge pump switch was left on when I got on the boat? So questions:
1. Could the pump switch being left on kill the battery? If so wouldn't the bilge pump work when I switch over to the good battery?
2. I guess I need to charge the battery and go from there, correct?
 
1. Yes, if the pump were left on for long enough with out a battery charger attached, it will most certainly drain a battery.
2. The pump didn't work when you switched because it isn't connected to the good battery. Depending on where they took power for the pump, it is probably drawing off only one battery.
3. Charge your batteries and see what you find out. You may have burned up the pump running it dry for a long time so be prepared for that possibility. It may also be perfectly fine. Charge or replace your battery and see what happens.
 
So I don't understand this. I picked up the battery from Autozone after they charged it. I installed it in the boat put the tester on it and it reads around 1-2v. The other battery reads 12.2v. How could the battery not have a charge after autozone charged it?
 
Have it load tested, if its bad replace it. I had a one year old DEKA marine battery fail in first season.
 
A continuously running bilge pump will kill a battery bank.
Can you pop the tops off of the battery and check the fluid levels in the six cells? It should be up to the bottom of the plastic funnel opening in each cell. If any of them are low, you could fill them to where they should be with distilled water and then charge it up.
Once charged, you can load test the battery before reinstalling it.
The bilge pump should be wired to the common on the back of the battery switch so that it gets power no matter what position the switch is in.
 
JVM225 said:
A continuously running bilge pump will kill a battery bank.
Can you pop the tops off of the battery and check the fluid levels in the six cells? It should be up to the bottom of the plastic funnel opening in each cell. If any of them are low, you could fill them to where they should be with distilled water and then charge it up.
Once charged, you can load test the battery before reinstalling it.
The bilge pump should be wired to the common on the back of the battery switch so that it gets power no matter what position the switch is in.
Click to expand...


Thank you. I don't think it has caps for the cells.
 
So the marina put a fully charged battery( on of theirs) in and the bilge pump worked. They told me they put my battery on a charger and it wasn't taking a charge. Not sure why this is as I just bought the battery a 1-1/2 ago. I just hope something charging related in the boat is not prematurely killing the battery.
 
Just some food for thought.

I had 2 batteries installed at the same time about 3 years ago. Last year one was not charging all the way and died a couple times during the season.

This year I made sure to run the on board charger for a couple days pre-launch. Battery 2 charged up fine. Battery 1 would not fully charge. Popped the covers on each battery. Fluid is Ok and the plates on Battery 2 look nice and clean. The plates on Battery 1 are all crudded up with sulfate - it's cooked.

When the battery selector switch is OFF the bilge pumps run off Battery 1. I have no proof but I think the bilge pumps operate more than I expect and run down Battery 1, shortening it's life.

Seems like a similar situation as yours.
 
If your boat has a battery charger that runs all the time keeping your batteries charged you should start by having it checked for proper operation.

If it's overcharging it could be cooking the batteries. Even if it's working correctly the batteries still need to have the water in the cells checked and topped off with distilled water to avoid exposing the lead inside the battery. I typically top mine off every couple of months with distilled water.
 
Boater420 said:
If your boat has a battery charger that runs all the time keeping your batteries charged you should start by having it checked for proper operation.

If it's overcharging it could be cooking the batteries. Even if it's working correctly the batteries still need to have the water in the cells checked and topped off with distilled water to avoid exposing the lead inside the battery. I typically top mine off every couple of months with distilled water.
Click to expand...

Thanks
 
b_arrington said:
Just some food for thought.

I had 2 batteries installed at the same time about 3 years ago. Last year one was not charging all the way and died a couple times during the season.

This year I made sure to run the on board charger for a couple days pre


Thanks
Click to expand...
 
Boater420 said:
If your boat has a battery charger that runs all the time keeping your batteries charged you should start by having it checked for proper operation.

If it's overcharging it could be cooking the batteries. Even if it's working correctly the batteries still need to have the water in the cells checked and topped off with distilled water to avoid exposing the lead inside the battery. I typically top mine off every couple of months with distilled water.
Click to expand...

I am new to our 280 (2007) and this is our first cruiser with shore power. I'm still working on figuring out the systems as to how the AC and DC systems work together and what weekly/monthly system checks to maintain. Your response about keeping up the fluids on the batteries caught my eye as I was recently wondering about the need to check ours out from time to time.

Before opening up the caps (we have a single 496 B3 with two batteries). To check the battery levels I would assume that just cutting off both battery switches on the top port side and unhooking the shore power would take out any possible safety issues before checking? Thanks in advance for any reply or input :0)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
My personal standpoint is have 2 engine batteries with no shore charger and 2 house batteries only on shore power. You can always afford to kill a house bank but kill the engine batteries and you dead in the water.
As for bilge pumps, buy the largest you can afford and wire one to each battery direct with a 20A fuse and 20A float switch, mount the second float switch 1 inch higher the first float switch. A audible alarm cant hurt either(car,motorcycle horn ,etc)
 
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