I used a pair of jumper cables and hooked up the dead battery in parallel with an old but servicable battery I had at home and hooked up the charger to it. After an hour I had about 7 volts. Now the charger would recognize the dead AGM and is charging it. It was up to 10V overnight, so I am hoping it will finish the job. If so, then I am back to figuring out what drained it or if there is an alternator problem. I presume if I measure the voltage at each battery while the engine is running it will be the charging voltage? If I get 14.4 volts or so at both batteries, then presumably my alternator is OK? Then I would be back to the propane alarm issue as the most likely culprit. Does that plan sound reasonable? Thanks- Dave
Hi David,
1. - yes, a new battery can fail and a two month old battery is still on
warranty. Give it back for a load test / replacement.
2. - The AGM will charge from an alternator if discharged but may not
charge from a smart regulator as the have a dumb battery validation
check. If you want to use a smart charge on a really flat battery then
you need to jump start the process with a dumb charger or another
battery.
- you should see life in the battery after a half hour on the
alternator but a few hours for a good bulk charge
You may have a fried diode in the alternator which can deplete a battery
when the engine is not running (and not isolated from the battery) and
give insufficient charge voltage.
Cheers,
Russ
Sweet
35 mk-1
At 07:04 AM 26/08/2013, you wrote:
I am beginning to feel that I
have bad karma with my new boat. First the good news: based
on all the advice I received, the Universal starting issue seems
definitely fixed- since I cleaned the ground connection, it has started
smoothly every time. The only strange thing is that all the
directions I have read say that you should continue to push the glow plug
button while pushing the start button. However, on mine, the engine
will not turn over unless I release the glow plug button. Also, the
GPS restarts each time I start the engine, which may mean there is still
some electrical issue, but neither is a serious problem at this
point.
Also, the black smoke etc. is largely gone since I cleaned the bottom and
prop as best I could. The shaft and prop were completely crusted
with barnacles, so clearly my Pettit zinc coat did not do its job.
I may try Velox next spring based on the advice of a local old
timer.
So yesterday I go went to the boat and found that my #1 battery is
completely dead. This is the battery that is wired for the
auto-bilge pump switch and propane fume alarm (that is all I know
of). The batteries are 2 month old Power-tech AGM group 27's.
I could not get much of any charge after a day of running the engine for
a few hours totals.
Questions:
1. do new batteries fail at some rate?
2. Will an AGM charge from the alternator if fully
discharged? If so, roughly how long would it take? I brought
it home and tried to use my smart charger and that is not charging it at
all (the charging light does not come on).
Perhaps related- I twice was on the boat briefly during the week and
found the Xintex propane fume alarm going. Both times I checked the
propane system and the tank shutoff was closed and all switches were off.
So I don't believe there were really propane fumes in the cabin. So
could the sensor have failed? Could the alarm going for many many
hours drain the battery (I don't think the bilge pump is doing
it).
David Knecht
Aries
1990 C&C 34+
New London, CT
![[]](tifS7g6JUrLei.tif)
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Professor and Head of Microscopy Facility Department of Molecular and Cell Biology U-3125 91 N. Eagleville Rd. University of Connecticut Storrs, CT 06269 860-486-2200 860-486-4331 (fax)
David Knecht Aries 1990 C&C 34+ New London, CT
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