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What batteries to use


macdaddy

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Was on Norris this weekend and floated for valise to 4 hours. Had the radio on and you guessed it. Went to start boat and it was dead. Had the use emergency switch to combine batteries to start. It did start but it got me thinking that I have not rep,aced my batteries since I have owned the boat, which is about 4 years. Right now I have an interstate deep cycle battery for the radio and a interstate battery for the regular starting battery. Just curious what everybody is using....or has anyone else had the same issue. No have the 247 with the 8.1 and when it is hot it takes a lot to crack over. It is quite a distance from where the batteries are located to the starter and it takes quite a bit of juice. Any help appreciated. Thanks

Mac

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Interstate is good. My battery guy tolbe me Interstate sold a few years ago and moved production from US to Canada and Mexico and the fail rate went up considerably. They dropped Interstate and started selling Duracell marine batteries. He claimed the fail rate was better than the old Interstates. Look into this. Never verified but the guy at batteries Plus said. New duracells have been great

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Oxdoc - what battery did you use for your stereo battery and what one did you use for your cranking battery? Nexpensive is right...but better than being stranded on the lake!!

Mac

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1 & 2 position on the Perko and playing tunes for 4 hours would be my guess. If he had properly managed his avaialble power he would have chilled on the 1 position and cranked over on the 2 position. I'm guilty of not managing my battery power properly but I guess my music isn't as good as macdaddy's!

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I run my 1 for music and if things get low i'll switch to 1+2 for the way home. This past weekend was the first time my 1st battery was not strong enough to start the boat.

Luckily I have a charger built in.

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Was on Norris this weekend and floated for valise to 4 hours. Had the radio on and you guessed it. Went to start boat and it was dead. Had the use emergency switch to combine batteries to start. It did start but it got me thinking that I have not rep,aced my batteries since I have owned the boat, which is about 4 years. Right now I have an interstate deep cycle battery for the radio and a interstate battery for the regular starting battery. Just curious what everybody is using....or has anyone else had the same issue. No have the 247 with the 8.1 and when it is hot it takes a lot to crack over. It is quite a distance from where the batteries are located to the starter and it takes quite a bit of juice. Any help appreciated. Thanks

Mac

I saw you trailering your boat up i-75 in KY yesterday. It was actually amazing how many boats were headed North... I probably saw no less than a 150 between OH and TN..

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To clarify...my 07 has an on or off position and then a third position for emergency start. There is no way to "manage" positions. It is either on or off. If I turn it off, there is no power to anything. Maybe I should just error on the side of floating for 4 hours and really draining my deep cycle. I have an onboard charger, but if one battery (radio) battery begins to drain, .it pulls from the other. Thus, not enough to start. I really do not know how this on board charger works. Without the alternator operating, I do not see how this little charger works because it is connected to the perko switch which is ultimitely connected to batteries.

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OK, so you have a 2 battery system with an ACR. That tells me that one of these things is true

1) Your starting battery is junk

2) Your alternator isn't charging properly

3) The ACR isn't working properly or it is wired wrong

You shouldn't be able to drain your starting battery by running the radio

Edited by oldjeep
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OK, so you have a 2 battery system with an ACR. That tells me that one of these things is true

1) Your starting battery is junk

2) Your alternator isn't charging properly

3) The ACR isn't working properly or it is wired wrong

You shouldn't be able to drain your starting battery by running the radio

Sorta agree... we need to see how your system is wired up. It sounds like you have everything running off of a single bank (stereo, starting, the works) and then the "other" battery is not hooked up to anything but the switch? So the only time the "other" bank is ever put under load is when the switch is combined?

I know that there were some folks who advocated this setup in the past, but I don't like it because by the time you deplete your big bank so much that the boat won't start, the only way to use your "reserve" battery is to combine it with your depleted bank. So then the reserve battery is going to be hit by your boat trying to start, as well as by the parasitic drain of the depleted battery bank trying to drag your reserve battery down to its level.

Better to have one battery wired to the boat loads, and the other battery wired to just the stereo.

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Sorta agree... we need to see how your system is wired up. It sounds like you have everything running off of a single bank (stereo, starting, the works) and then the "other" battery is not hooked up to anything but the switch? So the only time the "other" bank is ever put under load is when the switch is combined?

That would fall under #3 - wired improperly ;)

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That would fall under #3 - wired improperly ;)

Well, I'm a strong advocate of wiring it improperly, if "improperly" means not following the blue sea diagram. If you call blue sea and talk to them about how to wire the kit, they will tell you that their instructions are just one way to do it and that there are other ways that make more sense depending on your circumstances. Pretty sure those blue sea guys must be fans of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

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I have an onboard charger, but if one battery (radio) battery begins to drain, .it pulls from the other.

An on-board charger is for plugging when off the water to charge the batteries, but has zero impact on which loads pull from which battery. if your OFF/ON/COMBINE switch is wired in the most ideal manor, then your main cranking will not have any draws on it while at anchor. As mentioned above, you may just have a bad battery or a weak alternator.

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Well, I'm a strong advocate of wiring it improperly, if "improperly" means not following the blue sea diagram. If you call blue sea and talk to them about how to wire the kit, they will tell you that their instructions are just one way to do it and that there are other ways that make more sense depending on your circumstances. Pretty sure those blue sea guys must be fans of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

You run yours with everything on 1 battery and the other is only there if you switch to combine?

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Ah - well as long as your stereo isn't on your starting battery I guess it doesn't really matter if you decide to run your dash off one vs the other.

IMHO bad idea to separate dash electronics from ecm on separate battery. Better to have dash and ecm "seeing" the same battery.

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IMHO bad idea to separate dash electronics from ecm on separate battery. Better to have dash and ecm "seeing" the same battery.

Aren't they on the same circuit whether you like it or not? The ECM has a harness going to the medallion box, hard to believe they wouldn't have common power.

In any event I agree with that.

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maybe the box but pretty sure maliview, ign switch, etc all pull power from the busses under the helm. I guess that's one example of how the blue sea diagram is actually wrong for our applications.

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