Bad Charger?

[tenn bass]

I just got a new Vexus 1880. I have a dual pro sportsman series on board 3 bank charger. 2 interstate deep cycle srm27 for trolling and originally an optima agm which went went/was bad and was replaced with an interstate 31m agm (see further). As recommended by dual pro, I leave my charger plugged in so battery should be fully charged. I have the motor/electronics battery with an on/off switch and it is set to off until I get to the lake. I have a console solix 12 and on the bow, a solix12 with mega 360 and a garmin ultra 10 with panoptix. All of these are wired into the dual purpose agm starting battery.

First time out, I drove around a lot, set up the electronics somewhat, got a low voltage alarm on the bow solix after probably 20 min sitting with engine off. So I shut down the bow electronics and drove around some to break in the engine. Battery charged up according to the console solix and I quit because it was cold and windy.

Second time out, electronics gave me alarms after 10 min sitting with the engine off (console unit in sleep mode)-nothing else on. Started the engine up and the battery appeared getting charged as I ran the lake. Called the boat dealer, told him my problems and he thought the battery must be bad-even if it was brand new. I went home, took the battery out and had it tested at autozone. Yep, bad battery. Dealer gave me a 25ah higher interstate for free (I think it was $7 more).

Took that home and installed it, checked out all the electronics by just powering on and everything seemed fine. Left that on the charger for two days. Decided to mess with some of the solix settings just now. Surprisingly, the supply voltage on all three graphs read around 12.3-12.0 v with the charger still plugged in! The charger was showing a solid green light the whole time (fully charged) for all charger banks. So I unplugged the charger and then plugged it back in. Immediately, 2 red lights on the charger bank for the motor/electronics battery which is around 25% of a charge (the other two banks corresponding to the trolling motor were solid green-I never turned on the trolling motor). I watched the voltage gradually go up to 14 on the console solix as the motor/electronics battery was being charged. I just shut everything off and unplugged the charger after it hit 100% charge (solid green light). That took about 15 min. I shut the toggle switch to off so the battery circuit is disconnected to any electronics of the engine.

Bad battery charger? The damn thing makes noises when it is not plugged into power. I am going to let the battery sit for a few hours and measure the voltage again. I should note, the battery was not hot or warm to the touch before I turned on the electronics today when it was still plugged into the charger from the two day charge.

I did not do the wiring-the boat dealer did. I have no experience with this dual pro sportsman series. I plan on calling the dealer on Monday. Obviously a “bad” new optima and a run down supposedly fully charged new interstate means it likely is an issue other than the battery.

[Menacer]

The charger will click every so often when not plugged in. Unplugging and plugging back in the DualPro will put it into its equalization mode. That kicks up the voltage higher than the normal charge stage. If left plugged in it does it automatically once a month. Also I have found It takes a little bit sometimes for a battery to register its charge when the charger is first plugged in.

As far as the problem with your batteries a 27 is small in my opinion for what you are running and I have had nothing but problems with Interstate Batteries. Also I have never found the voltage readings on the units a true representation of what the battery is at. There could be a few things that could make them show a low voltage such as wire gauge, fuses ect. That doesn't mean that battery or charge aren't though.

Take a reading with a multi meter or hydrometer at the battery itself 12 hrs after charging. This will ensure the surface charge is off the battery. Also switch the banks with the ones from a trolling motor battery and see if the problem changes batteries. If it does then it is the charger.

Hope this helps. Good luck.