242x - What is this wire? And Battery Questions

[Kane]

Good Morning and Happy Fathers Day!

I have a wire not connected that is at the batteries. It's small gauge ground with a loop fitting that has a label on it. I'm not in front of it but I believe the label reads connect to common battery?
I have a feeling this goes to the solar panels. If someone with an X wouldn't mind checking to see if they have a similar small wire and which battery it's connected too, I'd be appreciative.

Also, the video shows when under power, the start and house battery should be on and the parallel batt off while running. My dealer says all three should be on?? What do you think?

I have a low voltage reading and I was just running on the House and Start, once I switched parallel batt on I had full voltage again. I'm thinking that ground wire not connected could be why that Battery ran low.
Thank you!
Mike

 

[buckbuck]

If possible we would like lots of pictures of the batteries and wiring to help you and Julian.

 

[Julian]

That small negative's label says to "connect to the common ground". I'm not sure what it is either, which is why I'm trying to get a copy of the service manual and a wiring diagram.

 

[Bill D]

If it gets connected to the ground, it shouldn't matter which battery it gets connected to. Both batteries grounds should be tied together.

 

[Kane]

Great point.....I just wasn't sure if that comes into play with the charging loop if in fact it goes to the Solar panels.

@Julian , do you think it goes to the Solar Panels?

I'm away from my boat so I can't take a pic but I'll return next week and do so.

 

[Kane]

@Julian , is your cable connected?

 

[Mainah]

This is the wire that allows the electronics in the DVSR to measure voltage. If you look at the switches you will notice everything is +12vdc except for this black ground wire. No way to measure voltage without a path ground. It is connected on my boat but I don't have the solar panels. Not sure if it should be connected on the eseries but also can't see how the house battery would get a charge from the stators without it connected unless emergency parallel is on or there is some other wire connected from the solar panel charge controllers to the DVSR. You should see a little red led lit up on the DVSR when it closes the circuit to charge the house battery. If you have a topped up start battery and run the engines for a bit this led should turn on.

Edit - @Kane given the issue you mentioned it is possible the dealer forgot to connect this wire (dealer installs the batteries and this wire connects to the negative terminal on the start battery) and certainly explains a dead house battery. @Julian given one of your other posts around house battery going dead with radio on this could explain that as well given the house battery is not getting any charge from the stators. Those solar panels are nice but their amp hour charge rate is not any near enough to keep up with with the amp hour draw of the head unit never mind the amps in those bumpin' x series.

 

[Julian]

This is the wire that allows the electronics in the DVSR to measure voltage. If you look at the switches you will notice everything is +12vdc except for this black ground wire. No way to measure voltage without a path ground. It is connected on my boat but I don't have the solar panels. Not sure if it should be connected on the eseries but also can't see how the house battery would get a charge from the stators without it connected unless emergency parallel is on or there is some other wire connected from the solar panel charge controllers to the DVSR. You should see a little red led lit up on the DVSR when it closes the circuit to charge the house battery. If you have a topped up start battery and run the engines for a bit this led should turn on.

Edit - @Kane given the issue you mentioned it is possible the dealer forgot to connect this wire (dealer installs the batteries and this wire connects to the negative terminal on the start battery) and certainly explains a dead house battery. @Julian given one of your other posts around house battery going dead with radio on this could explain that as well given the house battery is not getting any charge from the stators. Those solar panels are nice but their amp hour charge rate is not any near enough to keep up with with the amp hour draw of the head unit never mind the amps in those bumpin' x series.

I'm pretty sure the solar panels are connected on the far side of the battery switches, which will mean that if you have the switches off...no charge from solar panels. The DVSR ground connection will allow the DVSR to work and switch charging from one battery to another. Not sure it will have any play in a battery drain scenario....but it might....

 

[Kane]

@Mainah , as always excellent explanation!!

I searched the hell out of it yesterday and came to your exact explanation. I'm not back up north until Saturday but I'm confident this will fix my charging and voltage issue.
I'll update as soon as I can confirm this.
Thanks again for the info!!

 

[Kane]

Wire is connected and charging fine now. One point to add or confirm, when my low voltage read out on the dash followed by warning beeeeps, the voltage showed the same on both batteries, I guess that means its not fixed for 16....at least on my boat.

Thanks to all who responded and set me in the right direction!

Mike

 

[Julian]

Wire is connected and charging fine now. One point to add or confirm, when my low voltage read out on the dash followed by warning beeeeps, the voltage showed the same on both batteries, I guess that means its not fixed for 16....at least on my boat.

Thanks to all who responded and set me in the right direction!

Mike

Yeah...while trying to isolate my short problem, I'd completely disconnected the starter battery and the Connext screen was still saying it was at 12.2 (exactly the same as the House battery). When my starter battery was DEAD, it showed the house battery voltage! It would be REALLY nice if there was a way to fix this! I'd run a dedicated wire up to the Connext if that was all it took! Perhaps @Mainah - our electronics GURU can figure it out!

 

[Mainah]

@Julian - I don't think it is that simple. A wiring diagram of a connext boat would help though. There is most certainly a data bus at play in this system and my educated guess Is that this is where the screen is getting its information from. These boats are going to just get harder to work on over time as more software and databus procols come into play.

I wired a direct digital volt guage into my amp board for the start battery and my distribution block has one built in for the house battery so my solution is entirely analog at this point.

 

[Julian]

@Julian - I don't think it is that simple. A wiring diagram of a connext boat would help though. There is most certainly a data bus at play in this system and my educated guess Is that this is where the screen is getting its information from. These boats are going to just get harder to work on over time as more software and databus procols come into play.

I wired a direct digital volt guage into my amp board for the start battery and my distribution block has one built in for the house battery so my solution is entirely analog at this point.

I was assuming that the computer running the screen was the one determining voltage, and that as such, it would have to have two independent + connection points to accomplish this....we'd just need to find them! But perhaps the programmer of the screen is the one that made the ASSUMPTION that the HW would have two sources and it doesn't....but the SW was GA so we are stuck with it!