Polk'd my boat & the batteries are dying!

lolimeys

Finished the system and it sounds great. Just had the weekend from hell in trying to get the boat started. Boat is equipped with SB Chevy and 2 x PC925 Odyssey batteries (Perco battery selector switch). Last time out ran battery one down to zip playing the system with the boat beached and later my kid ran battery two low while the boat was in my garage. Tried to trickle charge the Odysseys overnight with no luck. Tried to jump start boat with a new high output spare battery (via jumper cables) and again no luck. Finally had to have a commercial charger hooked up at 40 amps for four hours and got one battery fully charged and the other about halfway.

I'm hearing conflicting stories about how to live with this situation of wanting to deep cycle one of the batteries while beached and still bring it back without the hassles. Install built-in battery maintenance system such as Dual Pro? Toss the Odysses and go with Optima Blue Tops (much bigger and hard to find a spot to mount them)? Other???

amulford

Are they deep cycle? Something sounds funny. Optima might help, but they can go down too...

I wouldn't try to run 'em down, if I could help it. If you choose to, maybe have one for the purpose, and have the other to start the boat. Or add a third and have two deep cycles.

PoweredByDodge

if you're going to tank your batteries to zero - get a gel cell - ie a yellow top -- you can recharge it (according to rumor/theory/some experience) infinite times.

kill a lead acid once or twice and its crap.

Red230SX

Lolimey's

Welcome to the club!

I have similar issues. I currently run a pair of Northern Deep Cycle Marine
battiers wich are 890CCA and 1100CA @ 70 Degrees F, they are Group 24's
I beleive.

I run them off a Perko "Make Before Break" marine switch which is a very
primative setup which means that you need to be the "brains" of the system
and make sure you are dilligent about switching back and fourth between
batteries. Well, like you, I too forget. Right now I am about to go boating
and I think I may have to flip to "both" to get her started.

The thing with Deep Cycle batteries are that they take tons of time to bring
back up to full charge and that's normal.. And as far as jump starting, you
can do it (I carry a portable jump pack) you need to disconnect the cables
that run from the batteries directly to the starter and you need to just hook
the jump pack right to the cables rather than running "through" the dead
deep cycle batteries.

With electricity it always takes the path of least resistance and with two
dead deep cycle's it's going to try and pull the current out of the jump start
pack to bring the deep cycles "back up" to 12V and that's no good..

Blue Sea makes all sorts of fancy digital pannels that will charge two deep
cycle batteries and will digitally switch between the two and charge them
both, and not overcharge either. You will spend some money on one... But
it may be a worth while decision!

Also, anything you use in the engine compartment MUST be marine or at the
very least be "Ignition Protected" you do not want a spark in the bilge of a
boat... Bad things can happen!

lolimeys

Thanks for the infor Red230SX. I now know why I couldn't jump it via the new loose battery and jumper cables (I still had the cables connected to the dead batteries).

Research on-line tells me that the Odyssey batteries, when deeply depleted, take more initial juice than a trickle charger or the alternator in the boat will put out. I can't replace them --- they're much smaller than full size batteries and my engine bay has no extra room. I've been told to tap into my 4 guage wiring for one of the amps with a full size deep cycle audio battery (such as Kinetik) and have it activated via no. 2 battery position on the Perkco. Supposedly it will do a fine job of running the amps at the beach (no engine running) and not let the draw tap into my Odyssey no. 2. Make sense???