Electrical issues

D

Dutton 5000

New Member
May 24, 2021
8
Boat Info
89 searay sundancer 300
Engines
Twin 350
Hi please help me I don’t know what to do. I have a 1989 sea Ray Sundancer 300. I went to take my boat out the other day and I had no power for bilge pump trim tabs blowers lights fridge etc. plug into sure everything works fine with the battery charger on turn the battery charger off at the breaker panel and lights go dim blowers barely turn. Engine starts and runs great batteries are new last year. load test I ran are telling me batteries are fine and the charger is charging. I cleaned all contacts for my house batteries. Sounds like a short or a ground wire issue but I do not know how to find where. Anybody put me in the right direction please.
 
I would still be looking at the batteries.

Did you disconnect them from one another before testing?

How many batteries and battery banks do you have?

Is it just one bank of batteries for one engine that is not functioning properly or is it both?
 
What @Little Ducky is saying is you likely have a starter battery(s) and separate house battery(s).
Since you say the engine starts and runs fine that battery bank must be good.

The Lights and accessories are running on a different battery bank that is dead, and only with shore power do you get good lights.

pictures always help.
Pics of the battery and cables
Pics of any battery switches
 
Dutton 5000 said:
Hi please help me I don’t know what to do. I have a 1989 sea Ray Sundancer 300. I went to take my boat out the other day and I had no power for bilge pump trim tabs blowers lights fridge etc. plug into sure everything works fine with the battery charger on turn the battery charger off at the breaker panel and lights go dim blowers barely turn. Engine starts and runs great batteries are new last year. load test I ran are telling me batteries are fine and the charger is charging. I cleaned all contacts for my house batteries. Sounds like a short or a ground wire issue but I do not know how to find where. Anybody put me in the right direction please.
Click to expand...

Do you know what a "short" is?
A "short circuit" is a complete circuit without a load. If this condition exists, you will either trip a breaker or blow a fuse.
 
On an 89 300, you should have battery selector switches as well. Have you checked their position and for corrosion on the terminals there? Also on the resettable breaker panel (on my 95 300 it was in a compartment in stbd gunwale), orange push to reset breakers, there is a large I believe 50 amp for the house circuits. Check that too. Let us know what you find.
 
Cocktail Time said:
On an 89 300, you should have battery selector switches as well. Have you checked their position and for corrosion on the terminals there? Also on the resettable breaker panel (on my 95 300 it was in a compartment in stbd gunwale), orange push to reset breakers, there is a large I believe 50 amp for the house circuits. Check that too. Let us know what you find.
Click to expand...
Wow ok on to something here. There should be a breaker reset somewhere but for the life of me can’t find one. On 89 300. Is there one as well? All works well when on shore power with charger breaker on. With charger breaker off every thing is really low like really low like batteries are dead but they are fully charged. With exception to fridge it runs on shore power with chargerfing system off. Really weird. I can’t wrap head around it. To me and everyone I talked to there should be a breaker or fuse somewhere. Or bad ground. Where the heck on this Searay is it?
 
Breaker is either on or off, if you are getting really low power, try turning your battery charger (converter on panel) off while on shore power. If the power is still really low than you are basically running off the charger. Sounds to me like corrosion at the battery selector "Perko".

https://owners-resources.searayweb....ncer_1988-1989_300_Sundancer_300Weekender.pdf

Owners manual shows the dual battery switch and the breaker box just above the batteries on the front wall of the engine room.
 
Little Ducky said:
I would still be looking at the batteries.

Did you disconnect them from one another before testing?

How many batteries and battery banks do you have?

Is it just one bank of batteries for one engine that is not functioning properly or is it both?
Click to expand...
Yes I disconnected. Have 4 deep cycle batteries in parallel. Engines start up fine. Trim up and down is fine. I have an inverter for running coffee maker etc and it’s seems fine. Assessors issue . No radio no nothing when off shore power?
 
Like ducky said, unscrew battery selectors and check back. I had a boat that had the same problem. There should be 2 or 3 lugs on the back of the selector. 1 of mine that powered the lights and everything was corroded and the conection was broken and rotten. Easy fix just clean posts and conection. Mine took me 4 hours of dicking around to find a 5 minute fix
 
Jeff Delbuono said:
Like ducky said, unscrew battery selectors and check back. I had a boat that had the same problem. There should be 2 or 3 lugs on the back of the selector. 1 of mine that powered the lights and everything was corroded and the conection was broken and rotten. Easy fix just clean posts and conection. Mine took me 4 hours of dicking around to find a 5 minute fix
Click to expand...
Jeff Delbuono said:
Like ducky said, unscrew battery selectors and check back. I had a boat that had the same problem. There should be 2 or 3 lugs on the back of the selector. 1 of mine that powered the lights and everything was corroded and the conection was broken and rotten. Easy fix just clean posts and conection. Mine took me 4 hours of dicking around to find a 5 minute fix
Click to expand...
Thank you for the helpful into. I’ve been a lot more than 4 hours dicking around. I pulled battery selector off twice and I looked fine. Tight and clean. Maybe I’ll unscrew rose nuts and investigate a bit more. When I put boat away last fall everything was fine. I leave battery in boat and connected and run the onboard charger for two hours a day for the winter. I’m wondering even tho battery load test are good maybe there is something else wrong? I had at least extremely dim lights and now nothing at all. Weird
 
Jeff Delbuono said:
Like ducky said, unscrew battery selectors and check back. I had a boat that had the same problem. There should be 2 or 3 lugs on the back of the selector. 1 of mine that powered the lights and everything was corroded and the 0conection was broken and rotten. Easy fix just clean posts and conection. Mine took me 4 hours of dicking around to find a 5 minute fix
Click to expand...
When you say battery selectors are you referring to the orange battery switch that has off 1both2 on it? Sorry about the stupid question but I’m just clarifying
 
Bt Doctur said:
With the charger on the lights are bright, with the charger off they go dim.
Your house batteries are dead
Click to expand...
You would think. They are charged to 12.8 tested good on a load test. Motors are all hooked to them and start strong. I know they should have there own cranking battery but it’s how we bought it and never changed I. Batteries all need to be reconfigured
 
Im confused. You only have 2 batteries? You should have 1 for wach motor and 1 for the house. Totall should be 3 batteries
 
No I’m set up poorly. One for starboard trim pump.( I know ) one for generator. 4 house batteries my motors are hooked to plus my inverter. I know it’s wrong but it was fine last fall. Don’t laugh
 
Where do your charger leads attach? Directly at the batteries or via the battery switch?
 
They key to this, is that the radio works while plugged into shore power but not disconnected. Not familiar with an 89, but 12 volts is 12 volts. You have a bad battery(s). I know you checked them, but the charger is supplying 12volts for the radio when plugged into shore power. Hence working. Wondering how you checked condition of batteries. They need to be checked under load. Keep it simple and go with the basics.
 
I have an issue with a bilge pump on my 2003 280DA. The fuse for the bilge pump trips after about 5 - 10 sec of pump running. Reset the fuse, pump runs again for a few seconds and fuse trips again. I would think that if this was a short, the fuse would trip instantly when pump turns on. Can it be the pump issue?
 
I had the same issue with my pump on a 98 290. Was that the pump went bad and would pop fuse after i turned it on. Replaced pump and problem fixed
 
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