Battery / Electronic issue?

[agarabaghi 10+ year member]

So i removed my amp and mailed it back for service.

Everything was off and all breaker (150amp for the syn6, 50amp for the sub amp) switches for the amps were turned off.

I have a dual battery setup with a Battery Doctor 100 amp Battery Isolator hooked up between the 2 batteries, also on 135amp breaker.

Hooked up the the new amp, popped back in the breakers fired up the boat, everything was running fine.

After several minutes of running the engine the battery isolator goes into:

"Charging over-current"

According to the manual, this means

"Excessive current flowing while in charging mode.

"Over current can be reset by pressing the Override/reset button or will automatically reset when the starting battery is below 12.8v indicating that the engine has stopped"

When i press the override reset the system goes back to normal for a couple seconds then back to Charging over-current mode.

What does this mean?

Link to item:

http://www.batterymart.com/p-acc-200...-isolator.html

Link to manual where you can see the specs / LED Fault lights

http://www.batterymart.com/pdfs/20090-manual.doc

Click to read more...

 

[subzero 5,000+ posts]

your links dont work.....

make sure you have your batteries in parell

 

[agarabaghi 10+ year member]

prior to sending the amp off, the system worked just fine.

Battery Doctor 100 Amp Battery Isolator: BatteryMart.com

http://www.batterymart.com/pdfs/20090-manual.doc

 

---------- Post added at 08:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:36 AM ----------

 

From reading around, im thining the main starting battery (original from 2006) might have seen it's last day.

Is it true that sometimes batteries will read higher voltage (~14v) when they are about to die?

I will check the voltage of the starting battery when i get home both with the engine on and off and see what it reads. I guess the next step would be to take the battery to AutoZone and have them test it.

 

[mast240 10+ year member]

100 amp isolator is a lil small for that set up, IMO... usually you want to over rate an isolator for your system, I.E. if your running 150 breakers, use atleast a 150 isolator.. right now your probably pulling more then 100 amps through that isolator, which is what is sending it into a "protect" mode

 

[agarabaghi 10+ year member]

How come it ran fine with the same setup for months?

They make a 150amp version... but before spending money id like to make sure what the issue was. Im just confused why it was working for a long time on the same setup...

 

[mast240 10+ year member]

100 amp will work, if your battery doesnt require that much of a charge... but if your batt drops down to a lower voltage, it'll require more amps of charge to bring it back up, which could be what is throwing it into protect... what is your resting voltage on your batt, and have you had it's cells tested? ... this is my best guestimate as to what is going on. kinda hard to say for sure what it is over the web

 

[agarabaghi 10+ year member]

I will have to check my resting voltage when i get home, it was about to rain so i covered up the boat.

When you say cells tested, im guessing someplace like autozone can do that right?

 

[mast240 10+ year member]

yea they can... just make sure they use a proper load tester on it, and not one of those handheld pieces of crap

 

[agarabaghi 10+ year member]

will do.

 

[agarabaghi 10+ year member]

So i checked the voltage on the starting battery at idle, and it was ~14v. Checked it with the engine off, 12.5v.

Checked the AUX battery with the engine off, 1.0v. UGHOHH!!!

Put it on a trickle charge, and got it back up to 7.5v and the Isolator detected it and began charging it. But the isolator is programmed to stop charging once a battery is at 12.7v for over a minute. So when the battery sits at 12.7v the isolator stops charging it, and it quickly would start to drop. It would drop to about 8v and the isolator would kick back on.

Eventually the isolator went back into protect mode, and i checked the voltage of the battery and it was 6.8v

I hooked it up to a trickle charger over night, and this morning i check the voltage and it was only 6v. I believe ive damaged my AUX battery.