on board charger question

[1simplemann]

I bought a used Ranger VS 620 this winter. I took it out this last weekend 1st time to familiarize myself with it and plus get some fishing in. All 3 of the trolling motor batteries had to be replaced Sunday despite me religiously plugging in the boat over the winter every month for several days. My mistake was never actually reading the lights because there was a 1' of snow on the cover and didn't want to have crawl in there. I just had the plug hanging out under the cover. The original owner said the batteries were only 18 months old. The batteries going bad seemed odd but I thought it was my fault and they had froze somehow.  Anyway, my onboard charger has 4 lights. All 4 read green on Monday morning after a day of fishing the day before but I had trolling motor issues. The prop on the Ultrex would not turn but would power up. In fact part of the problem was that the rocker switch would not power down. The blue light stayed on constantly. Which explains why my batteries died because I basically had a draw on them all winter because the trolling motor was on I'm assuming all winter. There is a kill switch in the battery compartment that I thought killed all the batteries. The service center said bring me the motor so I unbolted it Friday evening. That's when I noticed that the blue light on the trolling motor at the foot pedal was still on. Since I had flipped that switch I started looking around and noticed that the switch was only for the main battery. So right away I thinking I had a draw on the batteries all week. I check and sure enough all 4 read "red". I plugged in the boat and yesterday I had 3 "green" lights and 1 red. So now I'm thinking that the draw on the batteries killed a battery or least drew it down far enough that the onboard charge wouldn't pick it up meaning that I'm going to have to pull out the "red" one and put it on a regular charger. Now I need figure out which battery it is. Following the lines back to the charger would be very challenging so I just put test light across all three trolling motor batteries and the main battery. All 4 read good! I'm confused as to why that 1 "red" light is on. The boat is new to me and my previous boat didn't have 36 volt system. So why are there 4 lights in the 1st place if only 3 batteries are hooked to them? Why did they all read "green" last Monday?

[WRB]

Sounds like you have a battery question not a charger question.

Turn on the charger, then take off a charging wire from 1 battery and note which light (charging bank) goes with each battery. Now put one of the green light lead onto the red light battery and see if it charges. You need a load cell tester to determine if the battery has a shorted cell.

If the battery case isn't swollen or sides bulge it may just need to be charged.

The switched cranking battery is needed to protect the onboard engine computer and your electronics when charging that battery.

You may be better off removing your batteries when storing the boat in below zero freezing temperatures and maintaining the batteries in your garage.

What type of batteries do you have?

Tom

[1simplemann]

4 hours ago, WRB said:

Sounds like you have a battery question not a charger question.

Turn on the charger, then take off a charging wire from 1 battery and note which light (charging bank) goes with each battery. Now put one of the green light lead onto the red light battery and see if it charges. You need a load cell tester to determine if the battery has a shorted cell.

If the battery case isn't swollen or sides bulge it may just need to be charged.

The switched cranking battery is needed to protect the onboard engine computer and your electronics when charging that battery.

You may be better off removing your batteries when storing the boat in below zero freezing temperatures and maintaining the batteries in your garage.

What type of batteries do you have?

Tom

OK I did that and I get 2 red lights and 2 greens! I put them back and I get 3 greens and a red. I have Everstart batteries. They are 1 week old. Each one has 12 volts going across. I'm going to pull it and put it on a charger. All the leads coming from the onboard are #'d. The weird thing is the # 3 light is the one that's red but when I pull it I get 2 reds and 2 green. When I pull the # 2 lead I still have 3 greens and a red.

[Sam]

11 hours ago, WRB said:

Sounds like you have a battery question not a charger question.

Turn on the charger, then take off a charging wire from 1 battery and note which light (charging bank) goes with each battery. Now put one of the green light lead onto the red light battery and see if it charges. You need a load cell tester to determine if the battery has a shorted cell.

If the battery case isn't swollen or sides bulge it may just need to be charged.

The switched cranking battery is needed to protect the onboard engine computer and your electronics when charging that battery.

You may be better off removing your batteries when storing the boat in below zero freezing temperatures and maintaining the batteries in your garage.

What type of batteries do you have?

Tom

Tom, this discussion can be expanded to a discussion on charging batteries.

 

As you know, there are two schools of thought:

 

1 - Keep battery charger on and charging the batteries all the time.

2 - Charge the batteries the day before you use the boat.

 

Guys in my club do both.

 

What is your input on this issue and can charging batteries all the time be one of the causes of Simpleman's problem?

[TOXIC]

My 2005 Ranger has 2 manual switches on opposite sides of the bilge in the rear compartments.  1 shuts down juice to the boat and 1 shuts down juice to the Trolling Motor.  I leave my charger plugged in 24-7 when my boat is not on the water.  My OEM charger is not set up for AGM batteries and I have a Sears PM-1 monster for my cranking battery so the day before I hit the water, I hook up my portable charger that does have an AGM setting and I top off my cranking battery.  Normally when I hook up my portable to the AGM it shows 90% charged.  My 3 trolling motor batteries are wet cell and my charger handles them just fine.  You might also want to consider installing a "jump switch" for your batteries.  

[1simplemann]

Ok here's what I did tonite after work. I swapped the # 2 and 3 batteries hopefully trying to isolate the problem. # 2 and 3 lights are now red 1 and 4 are green. I will let them sit all night on the onboard and see what I have in the morning but I  think I my charger is going bad.