Battery/Altnernator Problem?

[YoMan]

I have an 07' 175hp Suzuki and had some starting issues out on the lake yesterday.

It started up at least twice, and I even left it on 15 mins after we got to the hump, but then all of a sudden it was low on juice, an hour later? It would not crank so I ended up swapping out the starting battery with one of the deep cycles.

I had the usual electronics going (live wells, depth finder).

The original battery made it through 2 winters and we just replaced with this one from Batteries Plus. My bro says that BP's batteries are not as good, but we only had it for 4 months, 4 outings..

Could it be the alternator? I started it up with the deep cycle, and tried to swap the connectors back to the starting battery, to try charging it, but as soon as I took off the negative, the motor quit...

The only thing I could think of is that I may of reconnected the wires back wrong, causing a short somewhere, but everything electrical works fine..

[SkunkedAgain]

I would get a volt meter on there to figure out if something is leaching power from the battery. To me that's the more probable cause than a bad alternator or battery, but the main point is that nothing should be ruled out. I always like to check out the easy/cheap causes before moving on to figuring out if the alternator is bad.

[PerchJerker]

I don't know about your Suzuki, but with my Optimax they say to NEVER run it without a battery attached. Sounds like the uber-spendy computer components in the motor don't like that very much ......

Have your battery load tested, even if it's reading 12 volts it may not have enough amps anymore to crank your motor. Idling the motor for 15 minutes is not going to put much of a charge back into the battery.

Good luck getting it figured out.

[marine_man]

It's not a surprise that it died when you disconnected the battery...

Are you sure you don't have a draw on the battery from something else when the boat's not in use (on the trailer or on the lift?)

marine_man

[YoMan]

Thanks for the insights guys. Im currently trickle charging the battery and will get the voltmeter this weekend.

[BoxMN]

One thing that we found when we first got our efi back in '97... was that we were fishing a no wake lake quite a bit, and never really got to get the beast spinning to charge the batt back up. Simple fix was either making sure to run her a bit, or better yet we got a three bank charger to keep it tip top, as you are doing now.

So if you have not been running her hard, it might just be that it isn't getting charged back up, especially if night fishing with lights, livewell, etc.

Good luck.

[gofishingtom]

also if u have a older graph with gps and have the white puck the antenna does need power and if u dont unplug it everytime even though u turned off ur graph the antenna still draws power and if u dont use ur boat 4 or 5 days in a row it will draw done

[YoMan]

Yes, my gps does have the puck ant.. Did some testing with the multimeter and did notice significant drops by just turning on the radio. Nothing drawing with accessories off.. Was stable at 12.4 w/o anything on, and as soon as I turn on the radio, it read 11.8.

The live wells and sonar would probably take it down quite a bit.

I noticed that the battery is a group "24m". I recall that the original one was a "24m(and another letter after m)". What does the alpha mean?

[jeffreyd]

24m is the size and use group 24 marine battery. I think you have a bad battery. If you charge the battery with nothing hooked to it, a full charge on a 12 volt battery is 12.6666 volts. 2.10 volts per cell x 6 cells in a 12 volt system battery.

you may have a bad cell and when the load is applied pulls down. a dead battery is considered slightly under the 12 volt mark. Most engines that have computer driven devices will start going to error mode around 11.6 volts. On a detroit diesel engine the computer needs 11 volts min to keep the computer running. You need to get an amp meter, cheap one uses a magnet that you just put over the cable and watch the gauge. a static draw, nothing turned on should revel approx.. .03 volt draw or less, anything over .05 draw is not good. hope this helps, load test the battery and move forward from there completing these tests. Jeff

[Iowa_Josh]

I don't know about your Suzuki, but with my Optimax they say to NEVER run it without a battery attached. Sounds like the uber-spendy computer components in the motor don't like that very much ......

Have your battery load tested, even if it's reading 12 volts it may not have enough amps anymore to crank your motor. Idling the motor for 15 minutes is not going to put much of a charge back into the battery.

Good luck getting it figured out.

The rectifier. Disconnecting the battery fries it. After you charge a good battery, it should hold 12.6-7 or better after a few days off the charger.

[marine_man]

There are two things I would look at:

1) Measure the battery voltage before starting the motor. Start the motor (on the hose is fine) and run it up to 1/2 throttle (with the throttle advance). You should see a noticeable rise in voltage over the voltage w/o the motor running.

2) Be sure all your accessories are shut off. Remove all the connections on the negative post to your battery. One at a time touch one negative cable to the negative post. If you see a spark that circuit has a draw on it. The other way to do the same thing is to connect the clamp on a test light to the negative post (with all the connections off the negative post). Touch the probe of the test light individually to each eylet. The brighter the light on the test light the higher the draw. Then you'll need to start chasing down what's pulling power.

marine_man

[YoMan]

[PoorWordUsage]..

My dad had the battery test loaded at batteries plus, and of course they said it wasn't the battery...

But the bad news is that he tried to hook the battery up, and a big pile of smoke came from the motor.......

He says the two ground wires by the lower unit completely went poof! Cut in half.. Im thinking this is gonna cost big bucks.. Im still at work and will check it out tonight.

I had the battery hooked up 2 nights ago w/o problems.. Im not saying he hooked things up wrong, but he is not quick to admit anything and is blaming the mice.. *sighs

[marine_man]

Uh oh.. .that doesn't sound good...

Good Luck!

marine_man

[WyoChris]

Some of the larger engines require the battery to run the fuel pump.... which may be why the engine died when you disconnected it.

I have the same problem with the battery dying and had to swap my trolling motor batteries a few times to make it back to the launch. Never really figured it out.... but I have been trying to run the main engine a little more and avoiding spending hours with the GPA/Radio on without cranking up the main motor.... and I haven't had the problem reoccur for several outings