Cummins Marine Diesel Repower Specialists Forums Cummins Marine Engines Battery issues & recommendations

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  • #28003

    Dave Galehouse
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Castalia
    Engines: Cummins 6c8.3
    Location: Mass
    Country: USA

    I have a 38 foot Luhrs with twin cummins 6c8.3 motors built in 2004. It’s our first big boat purchased in November of 2016 and clearly I have a lot to learn.

    It was winterized at the yard we bought it from in Connecticut last December before we brought it up to Massachusetts in the spring. When they put it away for the winter I was told there were battery and charger issues that they would revisit in the spring. So, in the spring they installed a new Pro Mariner pronautic 12-60p charger, 2 new deep cycle +starting 8D AGM batteries, I don’t know the brand (for the two engines/house power I assume) and the boat got a new group 27 battery for the generator and a new group 27 battery that powers the helm electronics. Those existed before but they replaced them. They also installed a smaller charger to I believe handle those group 27 batteries.

    The boat was put on the hard in the middle of October. I winterized the engines like two weeks later. The boat was shrink wrapped in late November and the battery charger ran for several hours that day hooked up to 110 power at the marina. I was gone most of winter. I went to the boat last week (beginning of February), ran the boat’s charger for 2+ hours and the 2 8D’s seem to be toast. One is basically dead, reading virtually no volts on a voltmeter and won’t even recognize a NOCO charger.

    ProMariner I believe said their charger won’t attempt to charge a dead battery much like the new smart chargers won’t. The other main battery is between something and 25% and will accept a charge from the NOCO charger – My belief is that the bilge pumps ran because we got torrential rain for 6 weeks last fall. I know the mid bilge pump ran because it pumped out some antifreeze I had down there and I know where was some water coming in the boat because I saw some on the side of the boat in the engine compartment.

    My electronics guy said not to do anything I was going to do (which was either try to bring the dead battery back to life with a dumb charger that just sends current then use my NOCO after the battery has some charge, or run it parallel with jumper cables to a good battery to trick it into thinking it’s one good battery and hook the smart charger to that until the dead battery had some power. He said even if I get it back to life, it’s not going to ever really be healthy or hold the charge it needs to hold again. He also thinks 2 8D batteries is not the correct configuration for this boat and is recommending potentially an 8D for the house needs (lights, radio, fish finder, bait wells, what have you) and one or 2 group 31’s for the starting side of the engines. I was wondering if anyone had any advice on what I should use for batteries going forward. The 8D’s were $1,200 total bucks and it looks like I may be throwing them away in 2 months. We are going to try to save the one with power then load test it in the spring. I called Cummins today to ask what the cold cranking amps were for these motors and they don’t even seem to know. They said, the range was 660 to 900 CCA’s

    I could use advice going forward as well. I was told this week (too late) the easiest thing would have been to disconnect the batteries and leave them in the boat so nothing drains them. My one friend with 8D’s said he just left them in and never had a problem and most of my other marina friends have smaller batteries they take home. I don’t think I have a parasitic draw, but maybe there was something else using juice that’s hard wired (CO2 detector, something else?) Bringing them home wasn’t really an option. They weigh 120 pounds, are hard to reach and I would have either had to pull them through the bulkhead door or disconnect the piston to the hydraulic engine hatch and I have no idea how much that engine hatch weighs. Going forward I am going to try and have the boat wrapped right after it’s pulled so the bilge pumps potentially won’t have to run or even need power. If I replace the 8D’s with group 31’s which my electronics guy mentioned, I could potentially take those home in the winter and charge them, assuming I can keep water out of the boat. We got more rain this fall than I have ever seen for weeks on end.

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Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
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  • #28575

    Dave Galehouse
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Castalia
    Engines: Cummins 6c8.3
    Location: Mass
    Country: USA

    Batteries were holding 12.6 and 12.5 volts after resting a day and load testing well on two different load testers (an electronic one and the old school toggle switch toaster). I am getting pretty high amp readings from wires on my 3 electric float switches. The company told me they cycle every 2.5 minutes to check for water but only for one second at a time and will use less than 1 amp per day total doing that.

    #28418

    Dave Galehouse
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Castalia
    Engines: Cummins 6c8.3
    Location: Mass
    Country: USA

    I used a clamp meter. I was going to try to a multimeter in the amp setting going negative post to negative battery cable just for comparison, but I didn’t get around to that.

    There is/was nothing on on the boat (presumably) no DC switches on, no bilge pumps running, the CO2 meter isn’t hard wired, not sure about the galvanic isolator.

    #28417

    Scotth
    Participant
    Location: Shoreline
    Country: United States

    How did you measure draw? Ammeter?

    Just start doing it yourself with a buddy, watch your ammeter and have a buddy turn of all breakers/switches/equipment one by one and watch for changes. Even if you can’t find the exact source, you can narrow it down a lot.

    #28412

    Dave Galehouse
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Castalia
    Engines: Cummins 6c8.3
    Location: Mass
    Country: USA

    So I went back up to the boat today with the intention of pulling the 8D’s out (a shop down the street offered to look at them and throw them on their 60 amp charger). When I last ran my charger several weeks ago (a pronautic 12-60) I noticed after several hours, it was in conditioning mode, only running at 50% and putting out 2 amps. I ran the charger today so I could open the engine hatch and today it was operating at full power and 60 amps and running in charging mode and seemed to be putting a charge in both batteries. Not sure why, but it was 70 degrees out today after being 30 for a month. We decided, we’d run the charger today and tomorrow all day and then see where we are at Friday before we try to yank out 340 pounds worth of batteries.

    My other plan after pulling the batteries was to put a new 12 volt battery in there I bought to do some parasitic draw tests and to be able to open and close the engine hatch. I didn’t get a chance to do that, but I did do a parasitic draw test on the 8D’s and the port battery seems to have a draw of .4 amps, which is high! That, along with the bilge running at some point multiple times might have caused these problems. The starboard battery seemed to have a draw of maybe .1 to .09, also still high maybe…

    Obviously I need to get someone in there more proficient to investigate the draw.

    #28097

    Philip
    Participant
    Vessel Name: 2007 35’ Cabo ‘FUGA’
    Engines: Cummins QSC8.3-540’s
    Location: Long Beach, CA

    Possible? Anything is possible…

    But not knowing how your boat is wired no one can comment for sure. Just to many variables. Even with a factory diagram no assurances that things haven’t changed with age and modification/additions.

    Your going to have to get the batteries up to good health, which may be an issue if in fact they were left 100% drained for any length of time as lead acid batteries don’t charge well after that.

    Once your batteries are back to snuff you will have to figure out if there is any drain on the batteries with all off. If there is a load with all off then you will have to figure that out, as something is wired hot full time. Could it be a bilge pump? Sure. Could it be anything else, absolutely….These can be challenging to find and sometimes take some time.

    Step one… get the batteries charged ASAP. And don’t forget to check the water levels.

    #28095

    Dave Galehouse
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Castalia
    Engines: Cummins 6c8.3
    Location: Mass
    Country: USA

    I wanted to add one thing I remembered. When I went to Connecticut in the spring to drop some stuff off on the boat I tried to raise the engine hatch and it didn’t go up. The service manager sent over a guy who did some testing. The DC/AC panel was down and I remember there were a bunch of switches on when I first got there. After a few minutes, the guy said “I think the batteries are dead!” to which I responded “the brand new batteries?”

    He jumped off the boat and there was an extension chord right by the boat coming out of the shop. He plugged it in and said, “you can do whatever you need now.”

    My theory is someone was working on the boat (there was stuff/parts everywhere), they left a bunch of DC switches on, and then someone in the shop unplugged that chord that was providing power to the boat for who knows how long?

    So my question is, is it possible they killed the batteries once last spring and the batteries were never at full health? The boat was on 50 amp shore power all year and the longest we used the house battery on the water to run stuff with the engine off was probably 3 hours.

    it doesn’t really explain why the starting battery is bad, if it’s just wired to be a starting battery.

    #28033

    Dave Galehouse
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Castalia
    Engines: Cummins 6c8.3
    Location: Mass
    Country: USA

    I know there was water coming in from the side of the boat when it was unwrapped and I don’t know from where. It’s the first time I noticed it all year. I was in the engine room one weekend and I could not only see water on the side of the interior wall, but the little anti-freeze I dumped in the mid bilge was completely gone and replaced by clear water. I pumped that out. When my marina wrapped it, my friend said there was more water in there (because it poured again) and at one point he may have said he heard a bilge pump running. I also have a deck hatch that will probably collect water in it’s bilge if it’s overwhelmed by rain. It didn’t just rain this fall, it poured for days on end for 6 weeks. Aside of not being able to account for rain, my marina was short staffed a bit, and the shrink wrapping took way longer than anyone wanted and maybe my boat just hates rain. I won’t wait that long to have it wrapped next year.

    I can’t definitively say it was just the bilge pumps that drained the batteries, but I know they ran and probably ran a lot…I obviously need a better plan next year!

    #28031

    Rob Schepis
    Forum Moderator
    Vessel Name: Tenacious
    Engines: 6BTA 5.9 330's - "Seaboard Style"
    Location: Long Island, NY
    Country: USA

    Dave the water got into the bilge before and after the boat was shrinkwrapped, right? Did you figure out where the water was getting in through the shrinkwrap? You can do wonders in patching up some holes in the wrap with a 4″wide roll of shrink tape..

    #28022

    Dave Galehouse
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Castalia
    Engines: Cummins 6c8.3
    Location: Mass
    Country: USA

    I believe the bilge pumps running off and on for 7 weeks drained the batteries

    #28021

    Philip
    Participant
    Vessel Name: 2007 35’ Cabo ‘FUGA’
    Engines: Cummins QSC8.3-540’s
    Location: Long Beach, CA

    Your problem is not with the batteries, something is draining them down so until you figure that out you will have the same issue no matter the size/type/configuration of the system.

    Having said that the one recommendation I can give is “simpler is better” when it comes to electrical systems.

    Rob gave you the specs for your engines, two GRP-31’s are way easier to work with than an 8D.

    Your house batteries will depend on your boat 12v house system requirements and how you use your boat. IE how many things you want to run and for how long.

    Here are a few items you should read and understand….

    Installing Digital Volt Meters (DVM) on Your Boat

    Typical DC Power Distribution Example

    #28008

    Dave Galehouse
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Castalia
    Engines: Cummins 6c8.3
    Location: Mass
    Country: USA

    Thank you Rob,

    I gave the woman I spoke to at Cummins my serial numbers. She said she couldn’t locate the CCA’s but that someone near here said 660-900. She kept saying it’s up to the OEM’s or the battery companies. She wasn’t making sense?? I told her it sounded ridiculous that they couldn’t tell me how many amps it takes to start one of THEIR engines and it should have nothing to do with any other company!!! Maybe I just got unlucky with whom I spoke to.

    I didn’t know there were/are deck drain plugs. Someone else just mentioned that and I had no idea. Leaving the charger on in the winter isn’t an option at this yard, it’s simply not something they or any yard by me really allows. As it is, the 110 outlet is 150 feet from my boat. Another yard I tried to get into but was full, doesn’t even allow batteries to be left in during the winter after a gas tank of a boat came off it’s hinges and the bilge pump pumped the fuel that was leaking out of the tank into the yard!

    I think I could take group 31’s home more easily and trickle charge them and I guess I’ll try to get the boat shrink wrapped much faster next year.

    #28004

    Rob Schepis
    Forum Moderator
    Vessel Name: Tenacious
    Engines: 6BTA 5.9 330's - "Seaboard Style"
    Location: Long Island, NY
    Country: USA

    Welcome aboard Dave. That’s quite a first post. Cummins didn’t know the required CCA’s? Not only is the range they provided too low for a 6CTA it’s not even the spec of it’s smaller sibling, the 6BTA. See attached spec which is 1250 CCA for your 6CTA engine. A pair of Grp 31’s in parallel make for a nice potent easy to handle start bank.

    Sounds like you have some deck drains that end up in the bilge? Is it an option to remove the drain plug and let the water drain out rather than needing the bilge pumps. I guess it depends on the plug location and angle in which the boat is blocked.

    Having to remove the batteries for winter storage is not part of “big boat” offseason layup. The ProNautic has a maintenance mode to float your batteries safely (see attached pg 17 of the user manual) so it would have been better to leave the charger on and let it do it’s thing and then the bilge pumps could have kept up with the water getting in the bilge. This does assume you do not lose power at the boat or you’d be back where you are now. Being absentee for months could allow this to happen unless you have a way to check on the boat remotely such as a wifi camera or such?

    LMK if there’s a specific question in your post I missed..

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