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Man, this boat battery is making me mad! My boat has only been setting up for about 3 or 4 months. I get here from Guam and the darn thing won't hold a charge. I know my first mistake was not getting a "maintanence free" battery. But shurly the battery didn't kick the bucket after only a few months? Have any of you other guys run into this before? What causes the batteries to go bad, and what kind of preventative maintanence can I do? 60 bucks a pop to crank a boat can get expensive.
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sounds to me like you bought a regular car battery instead of a deep cell marene battery. the price you paid is a dead giveaway.
car batteries need to be charged on a regular scedual inorder to keep a charge. they should always be placed back on the charger after every use.
one thing you can try to do is take a car radio or light and hook it to the battery to compleatly drain the battery. emediatly after you recharge the battery hook it back up and drain the battery again. this may help to retrain the battery to hold a charge.
you should do this with any rechargable battery when you get them new...
marene batteries should be able to take long periods of non use. they do here in michigan, they even sit out in the freezing winter temps only to take a charge again in the spring.
many of the larger boat motors have generators in them to keep the battery charging while in use. unfortunatly the smaller ones 20 horse and under do not have generators so it is most important to place them on the charger when back in port...
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i agree with dave, thatyou got a car battery,deep cycle batteries are made to be drained down to "dead" and recharged,reason is the plates in the battery are thicker.every time you drain the battery untill "dead" it wares the plates down.a good way to buy a battery is be weight,the heavyer the battery,better it is.if you got the money,gell batteries are supposed to be better,i can't tell you anything about them,i haven't use them
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In addition to the aforementioned advice, if you decide to go with the car battery, you would need to purchase a trickle charger that would only put juice into the battery as it is needed. A solar charger could work as well but not for long periods of time.
A gel cel battery would only allow you to run the battery on its side without any adverse affect on the performance. It too can drain down.
All in all, the deep cycle marine battery will also get my vote.[cool]
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Hey there Tarpon4me,
I don't suppose you left the battery hooked up when the boat 'set' for the 3 or 4 months. Took me a battery to learn that some batterys just don't do well hooked up and not used.
The electrical is so quirky on boats (in my experience) ..... there is always something going on with them .... I decked on a few 60 footers and something was forever getting messed up!
JapanRon
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if you don't have a onboard charger,i found one from NAPA around $45.you mount it on the side of the battery box.it turns on and off when needed the part no,85-300A.it puts out 1.5 amps.no more dead batteries
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That sound like a kick ass little gadget, i've never heard of an automatic charger before. I'm going to look into that. Thanks
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The problem is that you left the battery hooked-up to the boat and some thing (radio,light ??) is on and draining your battery. If the boat is out of the water disconect the battery and recharge at least once every month and make shure the case is not resting on a concret slab or metal frame because the change of temp will cause your batt to drain or dry up the batt fluid.
As for Gell cell they only need a charge every 6 months the down side is that they are heavy, twice as much in price and and it's hard to find a battery bigger than 80 amps.
Dont give up
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Firstly, batteries discharge internally at about 1% per day with nothing hooked up. BTW, the surface they're on has nothing to do with the discharge rate.
A discharged or weakly charged battery is more prone to freezing and the BIG battery killer, sulphation. That's the white crud you see on the plates.
THE hot cheet is a "smart" charger. No, it's not a trickle charger. It senses the battery charge and turns itself off & on as necessary. They come with a little pigtail that attaches to the battery so when ya park it, plug in the pigtail & fuhgeddaboudit.
If ya got a lot of electronics ya might want to consider a dual battery setup. Deep cycle are great for running electronics but don't have the mega amps ya want for cranking the engine.
Gel cells are THE cheet for boats. No more acid spills and they take the pounding & vibration better.
Fishslayer
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