Dead Batteries and a Charger problem?

jimandlaurie

Well, we were gonna go out for a day cruise after being gone for 2 weeks ,had the new Laurna Jo ready ,but... no power. No go on Starting Battery or House Battieries,. when I hooked up the power from the house to the boat, and turned the Battery Charger switch to "on" on the panel in the boat the main power switch lit up with both the Green-ok light and the Red-Reverse Polarity light on too?. Any suggestions? what the heck happened to cause all the batteries to die on us? I checked and all the switches were off including the ignition switch... Looks like a trip to C-Dory... hope we get it figured out before the Sturgeon Trip or we will need to come beg a boat to fish out of...

rogerbum · Posted: Sun May 29, 2005 11:34 pm Post subject:

Do you have a Norcold fridge on there? Mine was wired at the factory with no off switch to the 12V supply. It will run for several days without draining the batteries but would drain them in two weeks. I generally leave my boat hooked to the house power when ever I'm home.

Roger on the SeaDNA

DaveS · Posted: Mon May 30, 2005 12:26 am Post subject:

Jim, try a different power source for your shore power and see if the reverse polarity light is still on. That happened to me and I had to open the plug receptacle at the house and switch the wires in the receptacle. That cured the problem. Until one of the electrician experts on this site "log" into your question, hold off on your trip to the factory. Where's B C when you want him? (I don't want you to electrocute yourself Disgust

)

jimandlaurie · Posted: Mon May 30, 2005 8:46 pm Post subject:

Latest Update,
Yep we do have a Norcold Refer, but Can't tell how it is hooked up, since everything is dead, however it does turn on when hooked to shore(home) power... must not be hooked in with all the other stuff,because everything else, i.e. lights radios, pumps, etc are dead.

I checked my power cords from the house with a tester and get all good for polarity from the house.. the telling thing to me is that the charger input or output or both are wired wrong since no LED indicators on it light up...hmmm still looks like a trip to C-Dory.

katkt · Posted: Mon May 30, 2005 10:07 pm Post subject:

I'm just throwing this in, the factory had the main breaker wired wrong on the Katie Kat. When I plugged the shore power in it tripped the breaker in the house.
Make sure the main breaker is on in the boat and which ever breaker supplies power to the onboard charger is on also. If your getting power through both of these the LED's on the charger should come on.
If the shore power is plugged in and the breakers are all on and the leds are not lit on the charger there may be a wiring glitch behind the main panel.
Good luck finding your power drain if thats what it is that ran the batteries flat.

Sea Wolf · Posted: Mon May 30, 2005 11:03 pm Post subject:

Jim- Are you getting a "Reverse Polarity" reading on the Shore Power control panel or the battery charger?

The refrigerator probably switches from 12v DC to 120 VAC automaticlly on its own and is prioritized to go to the AC when it's available. It's also probably wired in without a switch on at least the AC side to prevent it from being accidently turned off, although it should have an internal switch inside the box, and should be wired through one of the AC circuit breakers which should be a GFI type. This would explain why the refrigerator works, albeit on AC, not DC, when the shore power is on.

Have you tried to plug in other appliances into the 120 VAC outlets in the cabin? If they work, the GFI circuit breakers and polarity are OK and working.

The battery charger may be sensing that the batteries are so discharged that they offer no voltage or even a reverse polarity and hence the charger will not turn itself on and registers "Reverse Polarity". To test this theory, take the battieries out of the boat and at least partially charge them* from another charger, then reinsert them and see if the charger will come on and finish up the job. This would account for both the charger green ok and red reverse polarity lights as well as the no-go at turning on the charger circuit. Good Luck! Joe.

* assuming they are in good enough shape to take a charge
__

jimandlaurie · Posted: Tue May 31, 2005 5:53 pm Post subject:

Thanks all for the ideas folks! Well it is in C-Dory's hands now. I took the boat up to the Factory and they will fixer up. Rick, the main tech there believes that who ever installed the charger may have got some wires crossed. He is gonna chase down the problem , make sure the batteries take a full charge and hopefully it was just a human type glitch... will post when we find out everything is ok.