Please forgive the
newbie question, and i have had a search through CF and I'm still clueless.
Are my
batteries dead or am i just not using the
charger or the switch right?
My new/old
boat has two
batteries and one of those off/1/both/2 switches. One
battery looks to be 100ah
AGM, the other is 60ah and has
water in it (i can see it through the little round window).
There was no
power when i took
delivery of the
boat and we had to start the
motor with another
battery.
I left the batteries on charge using my C-Tek
charger (which i know how to use, 'coz i read the manual this time!) for four days.
When i returned to the boat the C-Tek charger still had the "charging" light on, not the "charged" light. I disconnected it, turned the switch to "both" put the key in, turned it and pressed start button.
The starter
motor turned the
Yanmar over a couple of times, it nearly caught, then gave up.
Measuring the voltage with my meter the answer came back at 8.5 volts.
So i guess that means the batteries are knackered.
UNLESS...
Could i have tried to charge them wrong?
To charge them i simply put one clip onto the negative of one battery, then the other clip onto the positive of the other battery.
The two batteries are next to each other, and a cable goes from the negative of one to the negative of the other. Then a cable from each of the positive terminals goes into the back of the off/1/both/2 switch.
While i still had the C-Tek aligator clips on the battery terminals (the negative of one and the positive of the other) i stuck the multimeter into the C-Tek
plug and got 8 volts.
Then i disconnected the negative terminal of the 'wet' battery and still got 8 volts from its terminals.
I also spent some time reading this:
1/BOTH/2/OFF Switches Thoughts & Musings - SailboatOwners.com
I think i absorbed some of it, but not enough...
Maybe i didn't charge them right?
Maybe i didn't have the off/1/both/2 switch in the right position for
charging, or the right position for starting?
Is there anything dumb I've forgotten?
Or are my batteries just dead?
Thanks,
Matt