3 BANK CHARGER & BATTERY ISSUES

Ok
So i stored my boat this past winter in a heated garage and did not take any batteries out of the boat, nor did i keep them plugged on to trickle charge them over the winter. ( I know, my bad). So i get the rig home, plug in the charger and 2 of 3 lights lit up as red and that was expected.
The other light meter didn’t light up at all. This morning i checked and the same 2/3 lights finally turned green however the other meter still isn’t lighting up at all.

I tried turning the motor over… Nothing.
I tried turning the Kicker over since it has electric start… nothing. So i am assuming the one light on the bank charger that isn’t showing any light at all might be hooked up the the cranking battery which should be hooked up the the big motor and the kicker.

This is a Ranger boat and the 3 bank charger is also a Ranger.

Could it be a blown fuse? or????

Any advise to cut the search time down would be greatly appreciated.

Check your connections on your starting battery. They may be unhooked which would cause your charger bank to remain blank.

Sometimes chargers won’t charge batteries that are run too low. Put the starting battery on a car charger and see how it does.

FDR

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Sometimes chargers won’t charge batteries that are run too low. Put the starting battery on a car charger and see how it does.

FDR

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OK put a car charger on the cranking battery and I at least have power now to the big motor, the kicker, and my graph turns on
All 3 lights now are lit- up on the 3 bank charger
However my car charger shows that the cranking battery is almost at full charge but my kicker motor only makes a ” humm” noise when I try to turn it over and the big motor only makes a clicking noise like when cars do it when the battery is weak?
I’m wondering why the car charger shows that the battery is almost completely charged but neither motor will turn over?

A bad battery can send a lot of odd signals through chargers.

I would check your terminal posts that they are nice and clean.Use some emory paper or sand paper make sure your wire connectors are clean.

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Sometimes chargers won’t charge batteries that are run too low. Put the starting battery on a car charger and see how it does.

FDR

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Good advise here. If the battery got discharged below 8 volts the onboard will not throw a charge at it. Also inspect wires, hoping the meeces didn’t gnaw on them.

Most of the newer DFI engines draw a small amount of juice constantly, thus drawing down your battery to the point it will not return to a charged state. Answer replace stating battery, and either charge the starting battery about once a month or totally disconnect the starting battery when in storage.

Does the tilt and trim move as fast as before? Or is it a bit slower?

I am going with bad battery, but check to make sure the connections are clean and tight.

FDR

I also own a ranger and have been down this road before. Keep the car charger hooked up for awhile. I don’t remember the voltage but if its below ? volts the boats charger wont charge it. Once the car charger gets it up to a certain point hook it up to the boat.If it still dosent turn green your battery might be bad.

Connections are clean and tight
We are slowly brining it back from the dead as I was able to fire up the kicker
Wondering if I just need to put the car charger on each of the 3 batteries and charge t.hem up one at a time to bring them all up to levels they need to be at to perform their jobs?

If there is a chance any of your batteries froze I would replace them. Do the cases look normal?

Had the same problem once. Charger showed full charge but power t&t would not even work. Took battery in had had it checked with load tester and battery was shot! Bad cell. Thing was only a year old.

Leave it on the car charger for ~1/2 day then the onboard should take over. Had this happen several times over the last few winters. I also have heated storage and don’t take my batteries out…

Unfortunately sounds like your battery has gone bad over the winter.

You might get lucky and be able to bring it back, but there will be damage. You might be able to squeak by, but it will likely need to be replaced. Just hope it doesn’t fail you while you are on the water.

Same thing happened here with a TM battery. Wouldn’t charge after winter, I put it on a trickle and got it to where the onboard would charge. It worked fine for 3 or 4 trips, ran just fine and recharged to 100% (or so it said). Then we fished on a real windy day and after a couple hours the TM started to die. I went back and popped the battery compartment hatch and could smell the acid. Last 6″ of the TM cables were hot and the one battery that I nursed was fried. Don’t risk it.

My suggestion would be to let the onboard do its thing now that you said it is registering the battery. Then put a multimeter on it and crank that big motor over. You’ll know if its fried. If you do not have a multimeter then take it to a reputable place that does free testing. Our autozone here is good, they are honest and will perform the test right in front of you so you can see the readout. It does have to be fully charged to test though. Make sure you have them test it under cranking load of 800 amps+

If a 12 volt battery discharges below 10.5 volts, it may be very difficult or impossible to recharge. The best way to fix it is to hook up another battery in PARALLEL (positive to positive, negative to negative), and then hook up the charger to the bad battery and let it charge for a couple hours. Charge it at 10+amps if possible, due to sulfation on the battery plates (higher amp charge helps break it up). After the bad battery reaches 10.5 amps, charge it like normal (if you have time, generally the lower amp charge, the better).

The main reason this helps with modern chargers is due to a safety feature most have built in. If they see a battery voltage below 10.5, many of them won’t even bother charging it, as it’s a “bad” battery. By using the additional battery hooked up in parallel (parallel means 2x amps, same volts, series means same amps, 2x volts), the charger may read the voltage of the good battery, and charge the bad one as well.

If this doesn’t work, I would switch the charger onto the new battery to make sure it’s reading a high enough voltage to put out a charge.

Like others said, use a manual charger to bump up the charge, then your onboard will likely kick in and get them up to 14 volts.

ONce fully charged, put a LOAD TESTER on your batteries.

There should be NO DROP in voltage when using your load tester. If your voltage drops significantly – it’s junk, if it drops slightly it is well on it’s way to junk. Either situation i would replace asap.

Thought i had all my stuff disconnected from my batteries too this past winter, but i was messing around in january taking my SI transducer off the boat to use through the ice, apparently i turned on a bilge pump and my battery was deader than a door nail…I’ll charge it up, and load test all 4 of my batteries and make a purchase decision from there.

I load test all my batteries about twice a year because i do several day trips (With no charging) and use a lot of electronics. GOtta have good batteris.

Thanks for all of your advice guys
The battery will now turn over the motors but I haven’t did a voltage test yet

However now my anchor lights, bilge,live well lights etc are all lit up on the panel and won’t turn off when I hit the individual buttons. Horn doesn’t work either.

Now what should I be looking for?

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Does the tilt and trim move as fast as before? Or is it a bit slower?
Yes the tilt and trim move as fast as before