Problems with battery drain on my 242X

[Julian]

OK, I spent a little time today working on the boat trying to figure out why my starting battery was dead last week. So I go out to there today with a multi meter and sure enough, the starting battery is totally dead again (read like .7 volts). House battery read 12.5v.

So I try putting it on my Craftsman charger but it will not charge it (keeps showing a fault).

So I take it to Advance Auto and they put it on their fast charger and 40 minutes later it is back up to 772 cranking amps out of 800. So back to the boat I go. When I get there I figure I'll give it a bit more of a charge with my charger, and it only gets to the first bar of charge (out of 5 or 6) in half hour to and hour.

Its getting late, so I put the battery back into the boat hook up the negative terminals and before I hook up the positive cable I connect the multi meter to the + terminal and + wire to see if it is drawing any current and I get Zero. When I connect the positive terminals the Wet sounds sound bar on the tower crackles when I touch the wire to the terminal. I do this a few times just to be sure, and it crackles every time I touch the + line to the terminal.

I traced the + and - lines from both amps and they both go to the house battery and not the starting battery.

I'm baffled...but not an electronics expert....so when the new amp comes in I'm going to let them figure it out.

In the meantime I left the + cable off the battery so it wouldn't drain the battery.

 

[haknslash]

Can you disconnect the amp and then leave the starter battery connected? I know you said you traced the wires back to the house battery but if there is crackling going on when you connected the starter battery, I have to think somewhere they are connected. Might just be a remote wire but somehow something is drawing a load obviously. I would try to disconnect the amp just to see if that is the culprit. If your starter battery doesn't drain after disconnecting the amp then at least you know it's something with the audio system. Then again this boat has Connext and we've already seen some issues some members have had with it, but I would try to disconnect one add-on one by one until I found what is pulling a load.

I know you said you had a hum sound when the keys were on but engines off. Do you hear any hum sounds when the keys are off and wait by the boat for a few minutes? Maybe something is cycling on/off like a bilge pump or ballast pump. Really hate it for you having these electrical gremlins with your new boat. Hopefully you can get it resolved soon and enjoy it!

 

[2nazt]

Do you have a selector switch for batteries? Was it off when you hooked up battery and got the crackle? What was status of key switch? Did you confirm everything was off? Also you would get no reading going + to + just a heads up. If you had meter going to negative and touched + wire and had something then yes to a voltage leak somewhere.

 

[2nazt]

Also @Bruce find out on his boat that key switch is wired to house load? Wonder if that is still the same and causing a parasitic draw though conext system that way?

 

[Julian]

Key switch was off (I left the keys at home!) and all the battery switches were OFF too. Combine was off also.

 

[Julian]

Oh...and the connext screen showed 12.5 volts for both house and starting battery when the starting battery WASN'T in the boat! So this confirms that they still haven't fixed that problem.

 

[2nazt]

Hmmm maybe they wired switches wrong? It will good to find out what the dealer says. That battery has taken a toll being discharged that many times. Maybe they will replace as it really hurts them to drain completely.

 

[Julian]

Also, there is no mention at all of the solar panels and operation in the users manual! It would seem to me that they are inoperable when the battery switches are off. So I'm ordering an onboard charger.

I fear that the dealer is learning how the E-Series boats operate while dealing with issues...

 

[Gym]

@Julian. I'm not familiar with your new boat. Are the solar panels factory installed? Any solar panel setup should go through a controller, to prevent over charging, then directly to the batteries rather than through the battery switch.

 

[Kane]

Julian, I just posted a thread and saw yours. I have a wire that is not connected that says it should go to the negative on the common battery.....not sure if that's exactly what it says, but my thought is that it goes to the solar panels. It is a small wire with a loop connector and it was on the floor next to the battery.
I had a similar issue and once I turned in the Parrel switch, I had full power again

 

[McMark]

@Julian

Can you go to this screen and see if it shows the voltage drain? Hold the light bulb button to turn on connext then hold the sys button to get to diagnostics.

 

[buckbuck]

I wish I was nearby to help, Julian. I love troubleshooting. It sounds as if you had the meter connected correctly although I would recommend the Negative side. (2nazt-he was in series looking at DC current). Something is very wrong but will be an easy fix once it is identified. I had similar issues with my boat when I got it and it turned out to be the Sirius unit. Yamaha stepped up and bought me a new battery. Perhaps they will do the same for you after we do their Research and Development work for them. We will get you there. Please post a picture of the above screen on your boat.

 

[buckbuck]

@McMark, do you know what that "power supply" is referring to that is drawing 0.284 amps?

 

[Julian]

Will be interesting to see if this screen shows anything since it is only connected to the house battery (but will also be interesting to get a shot of this screen with the starting battery disconnected to see if it knows that in any way)

 

[McMark]

Not sure offhand but that picture is from this morning when I ran out to the boat to take the picture. If I was guessing, maybe the connext. This picture was with the keys off. I'm sure Julian knows about the screen but just trying to help.

 

[seadude]

With all the cables connected directly to the two batteries and three battery switches, it would be very easy for even our "expert" dealers to make a connection that would result in a current draw. A wiring diagram sure would be helpful - anyone got one?

 

[buckbuck]

Julian, does your boat have multiple negative wires of differing sizes? If so, disconnect all negative wires and reconnect all positive wires. Set multi meter to DC current and clamp black lead to negative post. With all boat systems in off, touch the red multi meter lead to the negative wires one at a time. Note the ones that show a current draw.

 

[Julian]

I am in the hunt for an E-Series service manual....time will tell if I can get my hands on one!

 

[tdonoughue]

What gets me through this whole thing is that when you tried to measure the current (your + to + measurement) there was no current. That is the part that does not make sense. I would redo that test and make sure that you have the multimeter set correctly (I am a bit of an electrical guy and have had mine mis-set hundreds of time, wasting tens of hours...). Perhaps you had it set too high to see the drain?

Then, I think that @buckbuck is right. Once you can see the total drain, you start working your way down through the circuits to eliminate those with no draw and focus on those that do have a draw.

 

[Julian]

I guess I should have taken an EE course at some point! LOL

What I'm trying to understand now is....why does the negative side even matter....one could have connected ALL negative cables to a single ground bus bar. So I figured that tracing the positive sides was more important/easier. The Fluke multi meter I borrowed is professional grade, so I'm certain it is possible I had it set wrong! Its manual suggested connnecting things and using the fuse box connections to see where current is being pulled...but this boat's fuses are all over the place, and since I had no draw showing on the only cable connected to the positive connection I figured I was done.

I am going to head out to the boat again today and redo that test.

Would the speaker crackle with only a negative connection? I would think not....