My battery scare -- CHARGED UP AND INSTALLED

Hey everyone. I just thought I would post a scare that I had. I wanted to take my boat out today, and something hit me to check if I got everything in my boat. So what happened was that I kept hearing a beep as I was undoing my storage cover. So when I looked inside I seen that my gauges were all lit up and looked down and I had the ignition on. I was like ****. Read the battery level and it said 8.3v. So I quickly grabbed the water muffs and hooked them up and pumped the gas into the motor and turned on the water to full blast and then I tried starting the motor it wouldnt even turn the motor. all it was doing was making a click sound. I got depressed. So I called up my mechanic and we are going to try and slow charge it. Hopefully it will hold the charge. Otherwise I have to spend $200 on a marine cranking battery. Sad part is that I don't even remember turning the ignition or anything. Especially I would have heard the beep when turning the key because the Optimax beeps when you turn the key. So that was my scare. I hope everything is ok with the battery and lucky I wasn't on the water. Wish me luck guys.

How old is the battery? I think it might just be run down. Hopefully a charge will take care of it.

Jim said:

How old is the battery? I think it might just be run down. Hopefully a charge will take care of it.

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Battery is about 9 months old. It came with my boat when I picked it up in August.

A slow charge should fix it.

I would recommend carrying a jump pack with you on your next few trips "just in case."

esquired said:

A slow charge should fix it.

I would recommend carrying a jump pack with you on your next few trips "just in case."

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For sure man. We bring jumpers where ever we go.

I would check the acid level in the battery just to be on the safe side.

shamoo said:

I would check the acid level in the battery just to be on the safe side.

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How do I check?

Just take the caps off the battery and make sure the liquid is to the bottom of the fill tubes. If it is low add some distilled water. I have a short (2') set of jumper cables I built out of 6 gauge wire and some battery charger clamps. Just the right length when jumping my starting battery with my trolling motor battery My TM is 12V so if you have 24V or higher you might want to make sure you are connecting 12V to 12V

Salmon_Slayer_2008_Lund said:

esquired said:

A slow charge should fix it.

I would recommend carrying a jump pack with you on your next few trips "just in case."

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For sure man. We bring jumpers where ever we go.

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Not jumpers - a jump pack:

Jump pack takes up too much room... At least in my boat it would.

flounderhead59 said:

Jump pack takes up too much room... At least in my boat it would.

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Then you can probably row your boat if need be. It sure helps if you have a suspect battery

esquired said:

Salmon_Slayer_2008_Lund said:

esquired said:

A slow charge should fix it.

I would recommend carrying a jump pack with you on your next few trips "just in case."

Click to expand...

For sure man. We bring jumpers where ever we go.

Click to expand...

Not jumpers - a jump pack:

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Oh sweet. I could put that under my dashboard.

esquired said:

flounderhead59 said:

Jump pack takes up too much room... At least in my boat it would.

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Then you can probably row your boat if need be. It sure helps if you have a suspect battery

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If worse comes to worst then I would put down my trolling motor and go back to shore too.

How well does your trolling motor work with a dead battery? :lol:

Dave,

I carry a short jumper cable to jump start my main motor if my cranking battery dies. The odds of both batteries dying at the same time are pretty low. Once my main is started I will head for the ramp w/o shutting it off until I get there. I do this becuase last year my cranking battery did die and I had to pull the cables off it and put them on the TM battery to start the main. Now with jumpers I won't have that problem anymore. They coil up nice and small and fit between my batteries.

I have also been thinking about installing a master disconnect switch for my positive battery so I can't leave anything on accidentally. Only problem is where to mount it. I can't open my battery locker with my trolling setup in place.

esquired said:

How well does your trolling motor work with a dead battery? :lol:

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LOL, it works great. The problem battery is the cranking battery. :shock:

It wasn't dead so that tells me that you should have no problems out of a 9 month old battery.

When you run a deep cycle completely dead is when you start having issues.

My cranking battery has pretty much everything but the trolling motor hooked to it. If I don't do much running with the big motor for the alternator to charge it, it can be down to about 75% charge at the end of the day.

I hook it to my 10 amp charger and it's back to 100% in a few hours.

$200 for a cranking battery? :shock: I would be shopping somewhere else.

Quackrstackr said:

It wasn't dead so that tells me that you should have no problems out of a 9 month old battery.

When you run a deep cycle completely dead is when you start having issues.

My cranking battery has pretty much everything but the trolling motor hooked to it. If I don't do much running with the big motor for the alternator to charge it, it can be down to about 75% charge at the end of the day.

I hook it to my 10 amp charger and it's back to 100% in a few hours.

$200 for a cranking battery? :shock: I would be shopping somewhere else.

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Your like me, I have EVERYTHING connected to the cranking battery except the trolling motor. I run the kicker when I troll and that charges the battery as the electronics are in use. Then when we do our high speed dashes then the main motor charges the battery to full capacity.

LOL $200 was just over exaggeration. I replaced a cranking battery on my old 2003 Lund and costed about $120-130. That old battery was 850 cranking amps. The 1 I have now is 1000 cranking amps.

I charge both batteries to 100% after every trip.

Even after I have done some running, the cranking battery usually needs a bit of topping off.

Quackrstackr said:

I charge both batteries to 100% after every trip.

Even after I have done some running, the cranking battery usually needs a bit of topping off.

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I need a charger. That is going to be my next purchase.

Well, I got my battery back from my mechanic. He slow charged it. I installed it and every thing works great. I monitored the charge and everything seems fine. I started up both of my motors but let my Optimax charge the battery. So I am glad everything is back to normal.