New 242 Limited S Aux Voltage Warning

[curtwalt]

Hey guys - picked up a new 242 Limited S this past Thursday and have been on the lake all weekend.

If I only run with the House and Start battery switches on, I get a constant Aux Voltage warning. If I turn on the Emergency parallel switch it goes away. This has happened since day 1.

I ignored it Fri and Saturday, but yesterday we stopped and we had my phone connected to the USB and an air pump running and the engines wouldn't start. I turned off and disconnected all accessories I was powering and was able to start.

I was told by my dealer that I wouldn't need to worry about charging the batteries unless I'm not going to be using the boat for extended periods. Now I'm reading battery charger threads

What am I doing wrong?

 

[steined]

Most likely the house battery wasn't ever fully charged and or is possibly bad. My dealer gave me two start batteries when I bought the boat. I immediately replaced the house battery with a diehard platinum marine deep cycle to take abuse like running it down on accident, etc.

I installed a charger not because I was having issues running the batteries down, but because it was a $100 investment to prolong the life of the expensive batteries.

You paralleled the batteries which should only be done if you can't start the motor on the start battery. Then left it there which discharged your start battery as the two batteries then sought equilibrium, bringing the start down and house up.

Charge both batteries up, check the water level and see if it happens again.

Good luck!

 

[Murf'n'surf]

As already stated, install a battery charger/maintainer to avoid this issue in the future and add life to your batteries.

 

[davel501]

Do you have the big black wire connecting the negative terminals on the batteries? It gets forgotten a lot and can cause this.

 

[txav8r]

First of all, @curtwalt , welcome to the forum and congrats on the new boat!

I can tell you two things that are absolute. The first is this...dealers mean well, but they are in the business of selling you a boat. And even their service department is in the business of supporting the dealership. So the recommendations you get from a dealer, and explanations, will not always be accurate.

While you wouldn't need to charge your batteries if you never depleted them, you are going to deplete them if you run anything that draws from the batteries, while the engines are off! So a good practice of how you want to keep them fully charged will save you headaches in the future, as well as money! No battery, even a deep cycle/AGM/standard lead acid, like it when they are left at a "less that fully charged" state. They will learn to perform to that standard and won't take a full charge or give you a full charge use as time goes on. So keeping the batteries fully charged is a top recommendation on any boating website, especially jetboaters. You will always see statements that someone doesn't have to do it or just lives with it without having to do any shore charging, but they pay the price one way or another...or they truly don't drain their battery below full. The engine electrical system will keep the start battery topped off after each start. But any paralleling of the batteries will "balance" the levels of charge on each as @steined mentioned. Depending on how your boat was set up, you may have most systems on the start battery, but they may have put your ACC stuff on the house. But your boat also has a DVSR standard I believe, and so it will be combining your batteries after start up and that will still level the batteries. If you never charge them, the condition will get progressively worse. And...new batteries from the dealer won't be 100% topped off generally. I found mine to be at 50% after I hooked it up to the charger when I bought it last month. So regularly charging is routine maintenance on a boat.

Congrats and welcome once again!

 

[curtwalt]

Thank you everyone, I really appreciate the quick replies. So it appears I made a few noob mistakes combined with a few cables not connected that I need to account for. I also have a new charger.

The black wire to connect the negative terminals was sitting on the floor next to the batteries. Also, the thin wire with red tab out of the bottom of the DVSR was just dangling there.

I've attached a pic of the wire. I've looked at a bunch of other threads and after charging the batteries will connect the ground wire between the batteries and connect the thin wire to the negative terminal of the house battery (any objections to that one?).

I will re-connect to match the image below:

http://yamahajetboaters.com/forum/download/file.php?id=13558

Now off to figure out why my fuel gauge would never show over 1/2 tank.

Thanks again. We did have a great weekend despite the few nuisances. I even spotted a jetboaters.net sticker at Port Royale Marina on Lake Lanier.

 

[Boat Crazy]

I purchased this from amazon for $13.95 and use it all the time. Just plug into your helm power port.

 

[davel501]

The thick negative wire should be the first wire on the posts. The dvsr wire should be the last on the house battery negative post.

 

[davel501]

I should have added, get the battery voltage issues corrected then recheck the gauges. If you run through the troubleshooting section of the service manual battery voltage is listed as a potential cause of many problems.

 

[pagekl]

Question on battery charging anyone. When I charge my batteries, the charger will display the percentage and then begin to charge the battery right up to 100%, however, the minute I disconnect the charger and reconnect, the display only shows the battery between 95-97% charged. This is the case with both batteries. One battery came with the boat and the other I purchased last year when the other original battery went bad. I bought a car/boat charger from Sears and wonder is this charger unable to fully charge these batteries. When starting my boat initially, it struggles a little bit, but then starts and once it runs for a while, it cranks right back up no problem. Oh, almost forgot, I only have starting batteries and not deep cycle as the service department where I bought my boat didn't recommend them with these newer model boats. Can't remember the explanation unfortunately.

 

[Evil Sports]

I only have marine deep cycle batteries on my boat, even for the starting battery because as said above the house battery can get a lot of use during the day without the motors running. That being said I have not had a starting issue even without charging for 3 to 4 days with radio and 2 fish finders running all day.

 

[davel501]

Question on battery charging anyone. When I charge my batteries, the charger will display the percentage and then begin to charge the battery right up to 100%, however, the minute I disconnect the charger and reconnect, the display only shows the battery between 95-97% charged. This is the case with both batteries. One battery came with the boat and the other I purchased last year when the other original battery went bad. I bought a car/boat charger from Sears and wonder is this charger unable to fully charge these batteries. When starting my boat initially, it struggles a little bit, but then starts and once it runs for a while, it cranks right back up no problem. Oh, almost forgot, I only have starting batteries and not deep cycle as the service department where I bought my boat didn't recommend them with these newer model boats. Can't remember the explanation unfortunately.

@ChargerGuy can answer more authoritatively, but I believe what you are seeing is the smart charger stepping down to trickle charging the last little bit and just showing 100%.

 

[txav8r]

Question on battery charging anyone. When I charge my batteries, the charger will display the percentage and then begin to charge the battery right up to 100%, however, the minute I disconnect the charger and reconnect, the display only shows the battery between 95-97% charged. This is the case with both batteries. One battery came with the boat and the other I purchased last year when the other original battery went bad. I bought a car/boat charger from Sears and wonder is this charger unable to fully charge these batteries. When starting my boat initially, it struggles a little bit, but then starts and once it runs for a while, it cranks right back up no problem. Oh, almost forgot, I only have starting batteries and not deep cycle as the service department where I bought my boat didn't recommend them with these newer model boats. Can't remember the explanation unfortunately.

/QUOTE]

@ChargerGuy can answer more authoritatively, but I believe what you are seeing is the smart charger stepping down to trickle charging the last little bit and just showing 100%.

Yep, that is correct. These smart chargers are too smart for their own good. The ramp up and down and when they get to certain levels, they go into a hold/float mode. Some will still be applying a trickle and this isn't good. Others will literally disconnect themselves from the battery and check back frequently to see if a need to trickle is necessary. These things are all accomplished with whatever charge algorithm that is set up for the programming on the charger. And it can be confusing. But in reality, you are probably not at 100% when full, and you are not at 95-97% when you hook back up. You are just below the threshold of full, so that is what it shows. A slow start or starting issues is another story and "may" be an indicator that you do have a weak battery. But if your using a good smart charger, and it is even showing 95%, then you should have the cranking amps to turn the motors over easily.

My PulseTech charger only shows stages of state of charge or the working level of the charger, from 25% to 50% to 75% to 100%. That means that it takes something more than what the upper limit of the chargers threshold to be reached to show 100%. And the way the charger can cycle, it may shut off at 99% and show 75% because it is below the magic 100% threshold. None of that means you have a bad battery. These chargers have protections and limits built in, and they try to make is simple. But when you unplug and hook back up, you have started the charger back through its startup sequencing all over again, and how it views the battery condition then is just different than how it views it when it has been charging for a period of time. It is a logics program that runs the charger, and the logic is different in both of those situations.

Hope this helps...

 

[maboat]

I only have marine deep cycle batteries on my boat, even for the starting battery because as said above the house battery can get a lot of use during the day without the motors running.

X2

 

[Skysurfer2010]

A lot of good advice on here, however if you do some research you'll find ideally you should have a dedicated starting battery for starting the engines and a deep cycle for the aux. Starting takes much more power from the battery over a short period of time and isn't meant to be depleted. Deep cycles are meant for lower power draws but over an extended period of time and are ok to cycle down lower than a starting battery before being charged back up. If each battery is used correctly they should give you many years of trouble free use. I'm not implying having two deep cycles is bad (esp if they're a hybrid deep cycle/ starting), especially since our engines are easier to start than an I/O, but it's not the ideal situation.

 

[Evil Sports]

Here is where people forget, We are NOT starting big block V8s. These engines are the same things you will find under the seat of the Yamaha Jet ski and those starting batteries are no bigger than a kleenex box.

 

[pagekl]

Thanks for all the feedback on this guys. I guess I'll take the batteries somewhere to have them charged more fully than I am getting here at home.

 

[davel501]

Thanks for all the feedback on this guys. I guess I'll take the batteries somewhere to have them charged more fully than I am getting here at home.

No need. We are saying they are charged enough.

An engineer and a mathematician are presented with a beautiful woman and the stipulation that at each time interval, they may move half of the remaining distance towards her.
The mathematician points out that the distance will never reach zero, and walks away in disgust.
The engineer, while fully understanding the math involved, is puzzled. "8 feet, 4 feet, 2 feet, 1 foot, 6 inches, close enough for practical purposes".

Be the engineer.

 

[txav8r]

I am beginning to like the way you think @davel501

 

[cane.mba]

@curtwalt the advice is well covered, I just wanted to say Welcome to Jetboaters, and nice to see more Yamaha's on Lanier!!