Boat Voltage question AND a report

[Rustic-Fisher]

Hit Buckhorn last week for the yearly one week vacation, bass fishing was great lots of 1.5-2lbers anywhere you hit . 
I try and hit deep weed edges so the kid can bass fish and I can fish for Musky . Caught some beauty bass on musky bucktails , but only had a few musky follows all week ,  not a lot of musky areas were hit though as I wanted to stay close to the resort incase there was a motor issue after my mishap of hitting a rock and damaging the skeg and stainless prop , thank god for the kicker motor that limped me back .

Great spinner bait bite on the lake last week , white was the ticket .

Voltage question …..

Ranger 1760VS 150 OPTIMAX on the back , and a 9.9 pro Kicker .All week my voltage reading was 12v then under load would drop to 11.3 when under throttle , smatcraft gauge alarmed a few times (low voltage ) cranking battery is a brand new 24 series think it’s possible I need larger ? 27, 31 ? 
Boat heads back to the dealer Fri for them to assess it .  Any opinions are welcome .

 FYI , big large was caught off the resort dock , rushed up for a pic and then rushed down and swam away healthy 

thx 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 23, 2022 by Rustic-Fisher

[Fisherman]

I think your battery is pooched right off the shelf.  If I'm at idle, I run around 12.9 and up to 14 at cruise.  Batteries are usually considered dead at around 12.0, under that you may have a bad or shorted cell.  After sitting for 2-3 days at home it still reads 12.6-12.7

[Terry]

When running the main motor what does the meter say and I think your kicker has charging, what voltage does it say when trolling, if with both motors you see low voltage. It’s the battery or the gage is not working right. Your motors are still able to start with this low volt showing 

[RandyLinden]

Nice boat!!

It's difficult to diagnose the voltage issue over a keyboard but there are some things that you might want to check into.

In most cases the cranking battery should be 1000 Cold Cranking Amps (CCA) or I have often used a 900 CCA regardless of the group size.

Has your battery been fully charged perhaps with an on board charger if so check that it has in fact taken a full charge.

There might be a number of other things operating with power from the cranking battery such as lights, bilge pumps, live well pumps, electronics and more. For example if you are operating a couple of larger displays and the live well for a few hours without running the outboard it could pull a weaker battery down to a low voltage. 

It might just be that the battery is just not fully charged and it doesn't get a full charge because you are not travelling long enough with the big outboard to get the battery fully charged. Then you are fishing and using power for your electronics etc. and after awhile the battery is in a low charge state.

Best of luck and good fishing!

 

[Rustic-Fisher]

Thanks Guys

New battery, old one would not charge past 80% when I pulled it and put it on the nautilus charger .

Ran the rig the rest of the time with no graphs on , or live wells . 

Other than a few rips with the kiddos on the tub most trips were 15 min , hope that your right and it was just not run long enough .

 

[RandyLinden]

OK so I'm guessing there is no on board charger for your cranking battery so my suggestion is to hook up a good charger and fully charge that battery. Then you should be OK for awhile. It's important to periodically charge that cranking battery if you don't it will end up like your old one. Also if you have a main power switch or breaker its a good idea to switch the power off when not using the boat.

Cheers

[AKRISONER]

Yup if you aren’t charging your batteries regularly and that cranking battery is hooked up to the accessories in your boat, that’s the problem right there. 
 

im going to suggest installing a onboard charger and charging your boat after every trip

[tbayboy]

I had the same issue as you and it was just what Randy/Akrisoner etc have mentioned: barely running the big motor at all (trolling motor fishing) but running all the rest of the boat (graphs, livewell, etc) off the same cranking battery.  New boat owner so didn't really think about it much until I got the dreaded 'click click' when trying to start the motor in the middle of the lake... it ain't fun going 2 miles back to dock on a trolling motor against the wind :(.

For a bit more detail: that was 2 years of never charging it other that whatever little bit it would get off the big motor. After it died I learned of my mistakes and started topping it off all the time but it wouldn't keep a great charge after that so got a new battery and now I top it up regularly rather than counting on the alternator and I keep one of those car battery boosters and spare boosting cables in the boat.

Edited August 24, 2022 by tbayboy

[Rustic-Fisher]

Update ….

Main fuse .. (fusible link) between the battery and the alternator. 
10” section of wiring harness .

Easy fix 

Thanks for all the reply’s and advise , now time to get back out after some musky !