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Low batt warning


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Ok guys, I have a 15' 23LSV.  I've been getting a 'low batt' warning.  It only seems to happen however when I turn up the volume on the subwoofer and it appears to also effect the rest of the speakers as they seem to cut our slightly.  I know very little about the electrical system so I have no clue.  Any ideas?  Thanks in advance!

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It's funny you bring this up, I just had a sub, box and 1000 amp installed in my 16 23lsv from the dealer and after they got everything running my boat was throwing a low voltage warning almost  immediately. Needless to say they are keeping it.

i thought it was interesting that my 16 would only get to about 12.8 volts while running and 11.3 off. I thought that was kinda low seeing as how my 11 and 13 always ran at 14-14.2 while running and 13 off. I just figure new model new motor more electronics etc. I will post up what my dealer finds out Monday 

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11 minutes ago, jwl019 said:

How many batteries do you have on your boat? Is it while the boat is running or when the boat is turned off and the stereo is playing?

I have a two battery setup and the boat was running while this was happening.  The motor turned over normal when starting, not like the battery was low.  It also read 13.2 volts with the motor on and around 11.3 volts when the motor was off and listening to music.  

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My guess (and this is just a GUESS as I haven't seen the wiring setup on this boat).

1/2/BOTH switch, they wired the amps to only work off of battery #2 and you have the switch on battery #1.  Battery #2 isn't getting charged and is not giving enough voltage to your amps.

I'd personally dump the factory 1/2/BOTH setup, upgrade to an ACR setup instead with the boat on one battery and the stereo on the other.

 

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Nitrousbird, thanks!  So if I understand correctly, this condition will happen when the switch is on batter#1 AND battery#2 is truly low?  I assume then if everything is functioning properly I should be able to charge that battery by running the boat on battery#2 for a while?  Or do I need to put a trickle charger on battery#2?  Thanks for the info!!

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My '15 had the same voltage readings, stock set up. Not sure if it was related, but I noticed the nut on the negative terminal wasn't nearly as tight as it should have been on the non starter battery to keep solid contact on all the post hook ups. Now I'm at 13.9-14.1 when running.

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15 minutes ago, Nitrousbird said:

My guess (and this is just a GUESS as I haven't seen the wiring setup on this boat).

1/2/BOTH switch, they wired the amps to only work off of battery #2 and you have the switch on battery #1.  Battery #2 isn't getting charged and is not giving enough voltage to your amps.

I'd personally dump the factory 1/2/BOTH setup, upgrade to an ACR setup instead with the boat on one battery and the stereo on the other.

 

 

11 minutes ago, dm001681 said:

Nitrousbird, thanks!  So if I understand correctly, this condition will happen when the switch is on batter#1 AND battery#2 is truly low?  I assume then if everything is functioning properly I should be able to charge that battery by running the boat on battery#2 for a while?  Or do I need to put a trickle charger on battery#2?  Thanks for the info!!

I agree with nitrous, dump the on/off switch.

In the mean time, you could charge it (trickle or regular battery charger), but also when you are running always have the switch in both, so both batteries charge.

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15 minutes ago, dm001681 said:

Nitrousbird, thanks!  So if I understand correctly, this condition will happen when the switch is on batter#1 AND battery#2 is truly low?  I assume then if everything is functioning properly I should be able to charge that battery by running the boat on battery#2 for a while?  Or do I need to put a trickle charger on battery#2?  Thanks for the info!!

I would run it on "BOTH" and switch the switch to #1 when the boat is off. 

This is why the ACR is a MUCH better setup.  It separates the batteries when the boat is off and combines them for charging when the boat is on.  Because in the real world you will not consistently turn that switch off when you turn the boat off and is a pain regardless. 

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If I am thinking correctly, with the old school off/1/2/both switch if you run boat with switch set to both or combined the fully charged battery will drain over to the dead battery, the alternator will try to charge both but depending on the alternator, the rpms, the duration of the run, and whether you remember to switch back to one battery when you shut down you could end up with two half charged batteries. I would run the battery one low, start boat on battery two and switch back to the low battery to charge from the alternator.  Then run a smart charger on both batteries while the boat is stored.

The ACR system prevents the cross drain, keeping the batteries separate but allowing the alternator to charge the batteries as needed. 

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FWIW, the Malibu manual says to run on "1" I think, not combined.  I don't know why the ACR is not more popular.  I had it on my last boat and loved it.  I also noticed on my 2016 the voltage always reads lower than I would expect.  I will try to check a few connections but thus far, it hasn't caused any issues.  

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1 minute ago, Bozboat said:

If I am thinking correctly, with the old school off/1/2/both switch if you run boat with switch set to both or combined the fully charged battery will drain over to the dead battery, the alternator will try to charge both but depending on the alternator, the rpms, the duration of the run, and whether you remember to switch back to one battery when you shut down you could end up with two half charged batteries. I would run the battery one low, start boat on battery two and switch back to the low battery to charge from the alternator.  Then run a smart charger on both batteries while the boat is stored.

The ACR system prevents the cross drain, keeping the batteries separate but allowing the alternator to charge the batteries as needed. 

It's not THAT smart.  The ACR just detects when there's a charging input and after a designated amount of time combines.  If you have a weak battery and a strong battery it'll still combine them (unless your weak battery is basically dead) and you are still going to get some potential for the strong battery to discharge to the weak battery (alternators don't usually put out enough current to totally keep up with a big stereo in all situations).

 

39 minutes ago, Nitrousbird said:

My guess (and this is just a GUESS as I haven't seen the wiring setup on this boat).

1/2/BOTH switch, they wired the amps to only work off of battery #2 and you have the switch on battery #1.  Battery #2 isn't getting charged and is not giving enough voltage to your amps.

I'd personally dump the factory 1/2/BOTH setup, upgrade to an ACR setup instead with the boat on one battery and the stereo on the other.

 

I like this idea except that the voltmeter would be reading off of the common post on the 1/2/all switch, so even if one battery were being discharged by the stereo, I don't think the boat's voltmeter would be reading that battery either.

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Same problem here.  I have a stock battery option 3 on mine, which I believe is the ACR.  Since I got the boat the voltage reads low 13s when running and low 11s when off.  I checked batteries with a multimeter while boat was off and got 12.8 on each.  Something is not right with the onboard voltmeter I presume.  I have a 20 hour service coming this Monday and I will have them take a look.

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2 hours ago, dm001681 said:

MLA I have the 1/2/BOTH/OFF and EVERYTHING is factory.  Thanks!

I would start by locating the helm BUS breaker on the wall in the port locker. Likely close to the switch. Fallow the input cable back to its source. it should go to the switch NOT a battery. If it does go to the switch, you will need to pull the switch off the wall and confirm that that breaker cable goes to the common output post of the switch. Do the same with amplifier feed positive. It needs to go to the common post of the switch, not battery direct. 

Next, I would put the switch in the BOTH position and fire up the engine. You should read alternator voltage on both batteries. Do this test by placing both meter leads across the battery post. This allows you to confirm the ground link is intact. 

 

I would suggest that the issue be isolated and confirmed, prior to changing out the battery system. You could easily end up with the same issue. 

38 minutes ago, ctvandy23 said:

Same problem here.  I have a stock battery option 3 on mine, which I believe is the ACR.  Since I got the boat the voltage reads low 13s when running and low 11s when off.  I checked batteries with a multimeter while boat was off and got 12.8 on each.  Something is not right with the onboard voltmeter I presume.  I have a 20 hour service coming this Monday and I will have them take a look.

So you've got 1.5V voltage drop between the batteries and the helm. This could be a cabling issue or it could be internal of the helm management system. I would would first want to know what the voltage is on the input to the helm system. 

Edited by MLA
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I checked my cables today and all are tight!  Also spoke with shop tech at my dealer and he didn't seem all that concerned. Said he would take a look during service.  Something has to be askew in the processing.  I noticed today that when I killed the engine with stereo on, the voltmeter on the Maliview would drop from low 12s to low 11s in 5 mins of listening to music.  But batteries still registered a solid 12.6.   I guess as long as I know my batteries are fully charged I'm good, but for the price I paid it would be nice to have an accurate onboard voltmeter!

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  • 2 weeks later...

So I did some more troubleshooting today and here's what I found.

While running down the lake, motor at like 4200 rpm with nothing requiring electrical power on, no head unit, no lights, nothing like that, volts showed 14.0.

While running down the lake, 4200 rpm, blower, both bilge, head unit, heater on volts showed 12.9-13.4 and low batt warning came on and when it did the music would cut out.

Another very strange thing, still running down the lake I would turn head unit on and the ballast % reading would go up to 25% on all tanks.  As soon as I turned the radio off they would immediately go to 0%.  I tested this multiple times and it did it consistently. 

It did seem like it would take a few minutes before the issue would appear after running for a little bit with the head unit off.  

Based on all of this it appears to me that I have an issue with my alternator.  It is definitely putting out 'some' power, it just seems like not quite enough.  Thoughts?

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I'm not sure what the issue is, but am following this thread.  I haven't had any low voltage warnings, but mine runs low as well (picture below is likely at idle or just slightly above).    I don't keep a super close eye on it, but think it reads 13.1 - 13.2 when surfing.  No issues though with stereo cutting out or anything like that, but it is odd you saw an issue with ballast readings.  Mine always seem a bit flaky.   

 

Btw, this shot shows the only issue I've had with my screen - twice now after going from the media screen to ballast, the media icons stay in the background.   The only way to fix it was to shut off batteries, but all functions worked when it happened.  

 

 

3B3A2012-B350-44EB-A7F3-4EB273DFF3E1_zps

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10 hours ago, dm001681 said:

So I did some more troubleshooting today and here's what I found.

While running down the lake, motor at like 4200 rpm with nothing requiring electrical power on, no head unit, no lights, nothing like that, volts showed 14.0.

While running down the lake, 4200 rpm, blower, both bilge, head unit, heater on volts showed 12.9-13.4 and low batt warning came on and when it did the music would cut out.

Another very strange thing, still running down the lake I would turn head unit on and the ballast % reading would go up to 25% on all tanks.  As soon as I turned the radio off they would immediately go to 0%.  I tested this multiple times and it did it consistently. 

It did seem like it would take a few minutes before the issue would appear after running for a little bit with the head unit off.  

Based on all of this it appears to me that I have an issue with my alternator.  It is definitely putting out 'some' power, it just seems like not quite enough.  Thoughts?

I also forgot to mention.  I talked with my dealer and he said that the stereo is NOT hardwired to battery #2, it will draw power from whatever battery is selected.

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11 hours ago, dm001681 said:

So I did some more troubleshooting today and here's what I found.

While running down the lake, motor at like 4200 rpm with nothing requiring electrical power on, no head unit, no lights, nothing like that, volts showed 14.0.

While running down the lake, 4200 rpm, blower, both bilge, head unit, heater on volts showed 12.9-13.4 and low batt warning came on and when it did the music would cut out.

Another very strange thing, still running down the lake I would turn head unit on and the ballast % reading would go up to 25% on all tanks.  As soon as I turned the radio off they would immediately go to 0%.  I tested this multiple times and it did it consistently. 

It did seem like it would take a few minutes before the issue would appear after running for a little bit with the head unit off.  

Based on all of this it appears to me that I have an issue with my alternator.  It is definitely putting out 'some' power, it just seems like not quite enough.  Thoughts?

I can tell you right now I don't think it's the altornator I have had mine replaced and still having the issue. Maybe we need bigger altornators but I don't think the one you have is defective.

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On my boat now and I just verified - 12.5 at the helm and 11.5 showing in my dash.  Definitely something in the processing I would say.  

Edited by hethj7
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