Friendly Reminder to Check your battery cables

[adrianp89]

Well what started as hmm that’s weird turned into a full day ordeal.

I noticed the lights on my 24v trolling motor were not visible and read a cause could be low voltage. Checked voltage and sure enough 16v. Time to move to the batteries…. Haven’t plugged them in a week or two so let’s just charge them up. Battery 1 gives a connection error. Wires from charger look good, so to more reading. That error can occur when voltage is too low. Test the battery and get 4v. Look at date on battery and it’s from 2013!

Now a quick trip to Walmart for a replacement and wire everything up. As I’m wiring back up I notice the wire to connect the two batteries in series is rusted. I check for continuity between the ends of the cable and get nothing at all. Not even sure how the trolling motor was still working. I grabbed some old 4 gauge wire from the attic and made a new cable, hook everything back up, test one final time and viola 25v and battery meter on motor is working again.

Now this has m thinking because my house battery has been reading low even after charging and replacing it. So I decide to inspect everything by house and start batteries. House isn’t too bad wire wise but starting wire is showing 7 ohms resistance and can hardly register continuity. I pull off the DSVR and find a ton of corrosion. There was mild corrosion around other battery cables as well. I took everything apart, cleaned it up, new cables, and corrosion spray everywhere.

I suspected some sort of battery drain for the house, so I ordered some distribution blocks just to make sure it’s truly shutting off. Hopefully will have this all finished up tomorrow.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Great post!!! Sorry that you had dramas but better now than during “the season”…. You know I’m glad you posted this as I will be getting into my battery compartment to install another smart shunt on the house battery.. won’t take but a few mins to pull the battery switch / dvsr off the wall and give it a spritz with some silicone spray as the ounce of medicine vs. the pound of cure.

Did you consider landing the dvsr wire on the switched hot for the start battery?

 

[adrianp89]

Did you consider landing the dvsr wire on the switched hot for the start battery?

No thought to it, any advantage of doing so? I am waiting some 4 gauge terminals tomorrow to wrap this up so still can make some wiring changes.

 

[Farny]

Well what started as hmm that’s weird turned into a full day ordeal.

I noticed the lights on my 24v trolling motor were not visible and read a cause could be low voltage. Checked voltage and sure enough 16v. Time to move to the batteries…. Haven’t plugged them in a week or two so let’s just charge them up. Battery 1 gives a connection error. Wires from charger look good, so to more reading. That error can occur when voltage is too low. Test the battery and get 4v. Look at date on battery and it’s from 2013!

Now a quick trip to Walmart for a replacement and wire everything up. As I’m wiring back up I notice the wire to connect the two batteries in series is rusted. I check for continuity between the ends of the cable and get nothing at all. Not even sure how the trolling motor was still working. I grabbed some old 4 gauge wire from the attic and made a new cable, hook everything back up, test one final time and viola 25v and battery meter on motor is working again.

Now this has m thinking because my house battery has been reading low even after charging and replacing it. So I decide to inspect everything by house and start batteries. House isn’t too bad wire wise but starting wire is showing 7 ohms resistance and can hardly register continuity. I pull off the DSVR and find a ton of corrosion. There was mild corrosion around other battery cables as well. I took everything apart, cleaned it up, new cables, and corrosion spray everywhere.

I suspected some sort of battery drain for the house, so I ordered some distribution blocks just to make sure it’s truly shutting off. Hopefully will have this all finished up tomorrow.

View attachment 194190View attachment 194192View attachment 194193

Wow that’s some corrosion - how old and salt or fresh water use?

 

[adrianp89]

Wow that’s some corrosion - how old and salt or fresh water use?

This is a 2020 with about 350 hours of salt water use in the past year. 500 hours overall.

 

[Farny]

This is a 2020 with about 350 hours of salt water use in the past year. 500 hours overall.

Surprised that much that fast - but then again we’ve only put ours in fresh water same year about 325 hours

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

No thought to it, any advantage of doing so? I am waiting some 4 gauge terminals tomorrow to wrap this up so still can make some wiring changes.

Eh, just allows your batteries to charge independently with the switches off and you are plugged in. And it will also allow equalizing charges on flooded lead acid batteries.

 

[adrianp89]

Eh, just allows your batteries to charge independently with the switches off and you are plugged in. And it will also allow equalizing charges on flooded lead acid batteries.

Should I move both the Start and House to switched?

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Should I move both the Start and House to switched?

No, just clip the red wire for the dvsr and attach a piece of wire with a ring terminal on it to the switched side of the start battery, there is at least one thread where a member did this.. I have no idea where it is though.

When you get in the boat and turn on the batteries, start battery in this case, it will supply operating power to the dvsr and it will function normally, E.G. charging start battery first ( by virtue of where the engine leads land) then when the voltage reaches 13.2 vdc the dvsr will close the paralleling switch and start charging the house battery as well. When floating, once the voltage drops to 12.7vdc the dvsr will open the paralleling switch isolating the start battery from the house battery and its associated loads so the start battery is always fully charged.

If you need the diagrams / instructions on this let me know and I will post them up for you here.. its a really simple task, but you have to make sure you connect the correct side of the red wire once you cut it. I did this to my set up since I have LiFePO4 batteries and have it connected to a manual switch.. I may connect that wire to an ignition hot. For more info look for the LiFePO4 battery upgrade link in my signature.

Again, let me know if you need the instructions on how to do the dvsr thing. I will add that if you are running flooded lead acid batteries you should be doing an equalizing charge at least once a month during the season or a condition based equalizing charge by using a hydrometer..to determine whether or not it is needed, this will keep your flooded lead acid batteries working at their peak performance and they will last longer. I‘m currently working on a post about battery maintenance, just haven’t finished yet.

 

[HawaiiBreeze]

This by far is one of the most overlooked inspections in all of water-craft because looking is not good enough. Pull them off and get up close and personal. Oxidation and corrosion is sneaky and always tries to run up the cable, right under the shrink wrap - tape what have you. This would be a perfect winter-time task when itching to do something boat-ish on a weekend. FYI I went from using a silicone spray, to grease/petroleum jelly to that red goo out of the spray can to coat my own terminals, cables etc. and the red goo seems the ticket.

 

[adrianp89]

No, just clip the red wire for the dvsr and attach a piece of wire with a ring terminal on it to the switched side of the start battery, there is at least one thread where a member did this.. I have no idea where it is though.

When you get in the boat and turn on the batteries, start battery in this case, it will supply operating power to the dvsr and it will function normally, E.G. charging start battery first ( by virtue of where the engine leads land) then when the voltage reaches 13.2 vdc the dvsr will close the paralleling switch and start charging the house battery as well. When floating, once the voltage drops to 12.7vdc the dvsr will open the paralleling switch isolating the start battery from the house battery and its associated loads so the start battery is always fully charged.

If you need the diagrams / instructions on this let me know and I will post them up for you here.. its a really simple task, but you have to make sure you connect the correct side of the red wire once you cut it. I did this to my set up since I have LiFePO4 batteries and have it connected to a manual switch.. I may connect that wire to an ignition hot. For more info look for the LiFePO4 battery upgrade link in my signature.

Again, let me know if you need the instructions on how to do the dvsr thing. I will add that if you are running flooded lead acid batteries you should be doing an equalizing charge at least once a month during the season or a condition based equalizing charge by using a hydrometer..to determine whether or not it is needed, this will keep your flooded lead acid batteries working at their peak performance and they will last longer. I‘m currently working on a post about battery maintenance, just haven’t finished yet.

Pcitures surely don't hurt! I have them on a NOCO Charger so they are typically plugged in to charge.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

That pic and others in this thread: https://jetboaters.net/threads/fsh-210-and-noco-5x2-charger.37059/#post-637609


Another thread talking about this.

https://jetboaters.net/threads/dvsr-help.22812/page-4

 

[adrianp89]

I have it back together now but will re-visit on my next oil change. Figure I will spray everything down every oil change.

Now onto the Livewell. Both Aeretor and Livewell pumps get voltage but do nothing. I got the Aerator part number easily and local West Marine has it in stock, opened another thread to find part number for the livewell.

Next after that will be figuring out why the horn doesn't work.... and then *sigh* finding source of my leak.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

I have it back together now but will re-visit on my next oil change. Figure I will spray everything down every oil change.

Now onto the Livewell. Both Aeretor and Livewell pumps get voltage but do nothing. I got the Aerator part number easily and local West Marine has it in stock, opened another thread to find part number for the livewell.

Next after that will be figuring out why the horn doesn't work.... and then *sigh* finding source of my leak.

Have you tried the line trimmer trick to see if those pumps are just stuck? If you do not know already, those Tsunami pumps come out easily, there is a red tab you push in and the motor and vanes untwist to the left. Not need to take the base off or undo hoses. As a FYI, when I was doing my raw water mod, I knocked the fill line fitting loose on the live well and that was putting some water into the hull, so while you‘re in there make sure those fittings are tight..in fact if I ever have to get in there those fittings are going to get glued in place.

The anchor locker is another source, as well as the clean out tray sealing surface. Pretty sure your FSH has the water drain notches on each side of the clean out tray??? If so just block off that drain that is on the tray…. That will get rid of the geyser when the boa slows down under the clean out hatchJk, and could definitely be a source of water getting past the clean out tray and the mechanical hatch, that and putting on a mechanical hatch riser… Once I did all of those things now at most I get a half cup of water out of the bilge plug at the end of the day, most of the time it is zero water, in fact I did two over nights on my boat last summer and zero water came out at the end of 48 hours or so on the water.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Also, don’t know if you checked for power at the pumps… but there are two fuses that are in the battery compartment on other fsh models… why they did that is beyond me since there is a breaker on the rocker switch.

 

[adrianp89]

There is power to the pumps. How would they be stuck? I took the aerator one out pretty easily but not sure what would make it stuck.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Most of the time a minnow or other obstruction gets in there and locks the rotor.