Mike, Joell and our dog Elwood

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Tuesday

November 15th, 2016

Electrical Problems

A couple of times now, while we were sleeping we’ve been having one of the CO2 detectors go off with a high pitch alarm due to low voltage, not C02 detection! So, last evening around 3 AM this happened again. I unscrewed the CO2 detector and threw a voltmeter across it…. 8.2 VDC… very low. Before leaving on our trip we replaced all 4 battery’s… one standard starting battery for the generator, one deep cycle #29 for the Starboard engine and two deep cycle #29’s connected in parallel for the Port engine and house draw. After seeing just over 8 volts I cleared the cockpit to opened the hatch over the engines and batteries… When checking the single #29 battery for the starboard engine I was a bit baffled because it was just over 8 volts. I then went topside to see if this battery would start the Starboard engine, it did…but in trying to start the Port engine, it just clicked and wouldn’t turn over. So the single #29 is on the Port engine not the Starboard engine. Thinking back when ever I’ve had trouble starting any engine due to low power it’s always been the Port engine…This was my first misunderstanding… I checked the two #29’s that are connected together in parallel and I had a nice 12.7 volts….this is why the starboard engine started right up. So what the heck is drawing this single battery down that just happens to have one of the hard wired CO2 detectors connected to it? I decided to pull the positive cable from this low battery only to find out that the refrigerator was connected to it. I don’t know who set this up prior to us purchasing this boat, but why would you put a device (refrigerator) that draws the most power on a single battery when you have a double battery bank. I open the AC/DC panel, installed a new breaker on the Battery 2 side which is connected to the dual battery’s and moved the wire running from the fridge over to that buss. Tonight will be the test to see if all is well…

I’d like to personally thank my Generator for always starting and running 110 VAC to power the battery charger.