North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

When I was out fishing yesterday, an over voltage alarm >18V came up on my sounder.

The auxiliary battery had been charging on the trip out there, but was separated from the cranking battery at the time of the alarm via the VSR. I put a multimeter on the aux battery and sure enough it went off the 20v scale! I connected it with the cranking battery and this brought the voltage backdown to a normal level.

What is going on? I've never heard of a battery holding too much charge before? Anyone got any ideas?

Check your regulator rectifier in the outboard and see how many volts are being put out.........I had one go in a 70 Suzy about 10 years ago.........showed 19v on the sounder

Explain how your batts are set up and what do you mean the aux was charging separate to crank batt?
If your engine is on, and a vsr is installed it will automatically connect to second batt. As soon as it reaches its threshold voltage the solenoid will open

Sorry, worded it badly. Both batteries charging when traveling, then when the engine was stopped and the batteries separated via the VSR, the aux was reading 18v+ and the cranking battery was reading the normal 13v. This is when the alarm appeared. Weird?

Regulator has shaat itself I reckon.

grumpy wrote:Regulator has shaat itself I reckon.

But the cranking battery voltage is fine and they were both being charged simultaneously. I hope it's not the regulator, I've only got 70 hours on the motor.
It's got me stumped! I haven't checked the voltage when running yet, but no alarms came up after I bypassed the VSR, whether the motor was running or not. It is strange that the voltage came down as soon as I connected the batteries together. Almost like an induced voltage with no current behind it, but enough to show up on electronic gear like the multimeter and sounder?

Mine also does this scottmac when I run the boat on just one battery it comes up high voltage every couple hours sometimes sooner low voltage alarm also comes up, I've had high voltage 10 min after low voltage has shown on the sounder. Now I'm having all sorts of probs with my simrad not recognising the sonic hub but the music is still playing ??? And my batteries keep going flat when it's all isolated in the shed ? Soon as I get some spare $$$ I will be sorting it out !!

Is the aux a wet cell or AGM?

jabsy wrote:Is the aux a wet cell or AGM?

Wet cell mate, An Allrounder from Supercharge.

Mitcho wrote:And my batteries keep going flat when it's all isolated in the shed ?

Had this problem. The VSR was staying on and the small current it requires to work was draining the batteries. Don't ask me why it was draining the house battery though. Have since fitted isolation switches on the positve AND negative prior to ANY current draws including the motor and not only do I not lose any charge but battery induced electrolytic corrosion is also nonexistent these days as there is no way for current to flow when not using the boat.