HPDI charging question ?

[JeffinParadise]

I have an 06 300 HPDI, that has about 30 hours on it. This past weekend while fishing a tourney after running my livewells etc all day, the starting battery was dead..... I do not have a voltmeter on the boat, is there any other way I can tell if the motor is charging the battery ?

I came home and put the charger on the starting battery and it charged up fully within about 8 hours. ( i had not charged the starting battery in about 2 months, although I use the boat most every weekend) So I am assuming the battery is okay !

[Hamfisted]

Use a digital multimeter and with the motor running at idle on the garden hose (or in the lake if you want...) just put the multimeter's leads on the positive and negative terminals of the battery and measure the output. If its between 14-15 volts then your motor is charging the battery. If it's 13v or less I'd say it's not charging. Or many of the GPS units installed today have a voltage readout on their information page and that should also read more than 12v with the motor running. If you have the Yamaha diagnostic system kit and a laptop you can just plug the motor's computer into your laptop and it'll give you the voltage readout as well.


-Mike

[BuzzB8]

If you run-n-gun a lot, then you need to charge the battery after every fishing trip. People seem to think that a 2 minute run will charge the battery back to full charge, but it won't. Big engines drain a lot of juice every time you hit the key and to replace that charge means you would need to make a few long runs during the day.

When I got my boat, I added a 1.5 amp trickle charger to the charging system just for the cranking battery. Every time I return from fishing, I hook up to the power chord in my carport and charge all three batteries at once.

[JeffinParadise]

Thanks for the info..... Yeah I forgot about the GPS, I will give that a try and see !!

and Yeah most of my runs are not very long........ I hooked my onboard charger back up to my starting battery now, so hopefully if the motor is charging, I will be okay in the future !

[JeffinParadise]

I got to the status page on the GPS and it was 12.5 volts with the motor off, once started it rose to 13.9 at idle, so I would assume it is charging. I was just on the hose, so I did not rev the motor.

[Charger]

I also use the VOLT reading on my gps. You can go into the menu and select the VOLT reading to be displayed on your screen.

[JeffinParadise]

Yeah thanks for the tip... I will do that !