Battery Charger Question

Maybe, could be worth checking, but on a brand new charger? Remember, i changed my battery charger but i put back the exact same one that the boat came with when there was no problem.

Forget polishing the fuel it is a waste of time, unless it's soooo dirty you can't run for 5 hours on a set of filters. Polishing gets 90% of the algae out, then guess what, that 10% grows right back to 100% in a month.

Run down as much of the old fuel that you can, add Diesel Kleen "clear tank diesel", it is a great product and eats the algae. Top off the tank and hit it again with the diesel kleen "clear tank diesel"

Hi,

I don't see this mentioned in the Spec Sheet available from the manufacturer.

Do you have some data that says it eats the algae that you could share with the rest of us?

I am not saying the product doesn't work, I am just wondering how it works

Fuel additives, gizmo's & gadgets have been promising that they were the Holy Grail since the Arab Oil Embargo of the 1970's, and there are testimonials galore (my boat washer recommended some stuff she bought from her chiropractor and they both swear by it). Every time the price of fuel rises another dozen hit the market. My question is this: If any of this snake oil actually worked and was even close to cost effective why would it be sold by the bottle instead of by the tanker-load directly to the refiners?

there are no external sensor on the Dolphin 80, only an optional heat sensor for the battery. We have one on the Johnson 70 I run, I replaced it last year after it failed (complete failure, no charging). it's completely automatic and should sense the alternator voltage.

the only issue we have is heat. it's installed in the ER and after a long run at speed it gets hot and shut down. I added an extra cooling fan on the cover to force more air into and to help the standard fan which pulls air out. it helps... otherwise, good unit.

has to be something in how the alternators/chargers are wired. how is it all connected? there has to be a combiner for both alternators to charge all the banks (two starting and one house assuming that's how the batteries are setup)

another thing could be a battery issue. Most of these boats are typically run with the generator on and rarely on the hook on battery alone so aging batteries may not be noticed until it's really bad. If the batteries are getting weak, old, etc... then i wonder if the alternators/charger arent' seeing this as a need for higher charging voltage.

check the battery set up and age. I assume AZ uses AGMs, not lead acid, otherwise check water levels.

finally dont' under estimate loose or corroded connections, especially grounds. these can always be the source of interesting and hard to find gremlins!

The quality of diesel is not nearly as good as it was over 5 years ago and before. 5 years ago you used to never see algae in the fuel filters unless the boat sat for 2 years without going through a tank of fuel. Now you see algae in it if the boat sits for a few months. However, the quality of diesel is now better in the US anyways now that offroad diesel is #1 diesel (low sulfur) instead of diesel #2 (high sulfer).

The version of Diesel Kleen is called Diesel Kleen Clear-Diesel fuel and tank cleaner http://www.powerservice.com/cd/

Here is what their website says it does:
Power Service Clear-Diesel® Fuel & Tank Cleaner is an advanced fuel tank cleaning technology that has been proven effective in hundreds of fleet, marine, construction and agricultural applications. Clear-Diesel can be used as a vital part of any preventive maintenance program or for immediate clean-up of equipment or fuel storage tanks.


So they claim that it is for both preventative and immediate clean-up of equipment and storage tanks. All I know, is I have used it and it has worked well for me and even cleaned out the algae at the bottom of the racor bowls.

Try this: Have your boat connected to shore power. Leave the generator 'off'. Make sure the battery charger is on and start the engines. Do the alarms still sound? If so, switch the main switch on the dash from 'shore' to 'off'. Do your alarms stop immediately? This is the case on my boat. What this is simply doing is shutting down the battery charger of course. Switch to generator power and it is the same thing, the battery charger is now running once more, and the alarms sound. Now, we both have different chargers but both were recently replaced. Anyone may correct me if i am wrong but i believe that my dolphin charger has a 'screw' type setting if you remove the panel that differentiates between the type of batteries you want it to charge. When the battery charger was replaced, i neither checked nor changed this setting when installing it. Furthermore, at the time it was installed, my batteries were already 2 and a half nearly 3 years old, and probably not at full capacity. This would explain why the alternator never sensed high voltage and i never experienced the problem till now, and this being because just last week i replaced every single battery with brand new ones. So, now that i have working batteries that are up to full capacity, and a brand new charger that is possibly on the wrong battery setting, the alternator is now able to sense high voltage and cut off. My father is going to the boat as we speak to check the setting on the battery charger and will let me know if this fixes all or not. I will let you guys know as soon as i do.

To answer another question, i cannot speak for sydian's 42, but our 46 has three house batteries and one starting battery that is shared by both CATS. The house batteries are 4D and are acid, i must fill water in them. The engine start battery is an 8D of the same type. The gen battery is a much smaller sealed non maintenance battery that has its own much smaller and separate battery charger on it.

Don't confuse the grade of diesel fuel with its sulfur content. Both #1 and #2 diesel fuel are available in the ULS flavor.

The major differences between #1 and #2 are viscosity and volatility. #1 diesel fuel is closer to kerosene and is sometime called "winter diesel" because of its lower flash point and higher cetane number.

And speaking of flash point ... if the fuel you are loading has a flash point of less than 60*C (140*F) it's not a marine fuel and in the event of a fire could lead to insurance and other issues. The flash point of #1 diesel can be as low as 100*F or about 37*C.

only one 8D shared by both engines? yuck... you have all your eggs in the same basket, especially with electronic engines. if something happens to that single battery you are dead in the water... poor design.

each main and each genny should have it's own starting battery.

i wonder if teh charger is sensing the voltage on the house bank and putting out too much voltage for the starting battery.

i also wonder if both alternator are connected to that single 8D or if one charges the 8D and the other one charges the house bank.

It sounds like the wiring is a little unorthodox. Unless there's an inverter in the circuit running a battery charger should not adversely affect the engine. With three charging sources to one battery two of them would normally do next to nothing with the strongest charge (voltage) doing most if not all the work. In smaller boats it's not uncommon to run two engines on "Both" battery banks. Typically one alternator does the work and the other one idles.

In this situation I'd have to speculate that since there are two electronic engines on one bank there may be some extra circuitry to protect against voltage drop when the second engine starts. If the charger is tied into the engine circuit instead of directly to the battery then this could cause a problem. But then why wouldn't you just tie the charger directly to the battery? The engine isolation circuitry wouldn't care whether the charger was on or not. I'd like to see a schematic of what they are doing. Do any other yachts in this size range use a single starting bank of batteries?

And yes I've seen a situation where both engines were running and we needed the charger to keep up with the 12V drain. Not my boat but one bad alternator, running lights, cockpit spreaders, electronics, cabin lights, livewell pump, etc just added up to too much. Without the charger it would have killed an overnight fishing trip.

According to a wiring diagram i have for the boat, one alternator is connected to the single engine battery and the other is connected to the 3 house batteries.

I am going to try scanning and posting this diagram for you to see.

OK so, my dad just called me from the boat. He's fixed the problem. As i was saying earlier, our dolphin battery charger has a setting knob inside the panel which requires you to set it to the specific battery type its charging. As we replaced our battery charger and the batteries we never checked this setting. Well dad found it set at 'flooded lead battery', and boosting at 14.5v. He switched it to 'field lead acid', and float @ 13.2v. This automatically fixed the problem, the alarms are no longer sounding and the battery charger is charging normally. Sydian, i suggest you take a closer look at your battery charger and also at the type of batteries the boat has. Did the mariner recently replace all the batteries? I was thinking this is the most likely cause and the batteries and battery charger are not 'in sync'.

Let me know as soon as you do if this helped!

Still. One start battery for two engines with only one alternator charging the start battery is a lousy setup. If you loose that engine for whatever reason the battery will quickly run down and could lead to your only engine to shut down

I would never buy a boat with that setup unless inknew incould easily add a second start battery

Wouldn't the battery charger just charge it should the engine fail? I can also parrallel the engines onto the house batteries to start and have done this already.

I'm not sure that's the way it is actually setup. However it if is... You'll lose both engines since they would both be using the same battery. No 12V no ECM no engines!

I think it is more likely that they have a start battery for one engine and a house/start battery for the other. Those ECM's are pretty sensitive and I just can't see them working properly when the other engine is started on the same battery. You'd need a DC to DC converter to keep the ECM voltage above 12. But why go to all that trouble just to save on one battery?

I guess we'll find out when we see the wiring diagram.

That could be the case, i am at the office now so i will post the diagram a little later when i am home again.