OkÂ…I have some battery questions. Maybe I am doing something wrongÂ…hell I donÂ’t know.
Bought the boat last august….Regal 270, seemed to always have battery issues last year, any where from dead batteries to no water, and short cycles. The boat has two batteries and one switch, reading “1” “all” and “2”. There is not a separate battery for starting…only these two batteries. Last year I wrote off the issues to bad batteries, knowing that I wanted to replace them this year with new ones.
Well….got two new batteries, the Optima D31M. I pulled the boat from storage about three weeks ago, and installed ONE battery as that’s all the place had at the time. I had to order the other. I never measured voltage on the battery; all I used it for was to raise the drives. I then took it to the service place and it sat there for three weeks before he worked on it. I picked the boat up last night. The guy that did the work wasn’t there, but I could tell he had issues with the battery because he had the shore power cables out…obviously to charge it. Once I got the boat to the ramp and tried to start it, the single installed battery was dead (not dead, but not enough to start) So, I installed the second one, switched the switch to “all”, the boat fired up and fine and all was well.
Cruising around last night I noticed the volt gauge never really got over 12V even when running wide open, usually its up around 14V when running, and drops to 12v when off (like normal) I just figured it was the dead battery and didn’t pay much attention, knowing that the battery would get a good charge over the night. Got in around 10 last night and plugged everything and hit the sack, and switched the battery switch to 1, knowing that it’s really not good to have them on “all”. Got up this morning and started packing everything up to head back and when turning everything off, I noticed at the switch panel in the cabin that the 12V side of things was only reading 10V’s. (switch was still on “1l”) Switched the switch to “2” and the voltage jumped to 12V like it should be. At this point I decided to check the voltage at each battery with a meter. The battery that I installed last night read 12.4 volts, and the one I installed three weeks ago read only 10V. So, after sitting all night on the charger, it got nothing. The charger is a C-Charger 9000 series. I also found out that the water pressure pump (12v) was running all night (leak somewhere).
SoÂ…is it likely that I have a bad battery or am I doing something to take these things out? Or is the fact that the water pressure pump running all night kept the battery from getting a charge?
I also tested the bad battery when the charger was on, and it still only read 10v. However, maybe the charger wasnÂ’t actually on, it might have been cycling, and was in the off state.
From what I have read I should be able to keep the charger on at all times (like during the week when I am not there) and not have any issues. I am concerned that I am somehow over charging these things.
Any advice would be appreciated!!
Thanks!