www.iFourWinns.com

I am the new owner of a 2002 298 Vista Cruiser.

I am wondering what is the best way to save your batteries when you are off the dock? I have the systems control panel on the stern of the boat, do I shut off the port or starboard switches or leave them both on and just run the genorator periodically.

I drained my battery the other day while on an over nighter on the anchor, everything seemed dead, I switched the ships systems switch to parallel and I was able to start both engines.

Can anyone help me out??

Tom

What did you have powered on overnight when the batteries went dead? What batteries do you have in the boat, and how old are they?

How much power you're using vs. how much you have available needs to be accounted for. There are some modern solutions that were not available in 2002 to vastly extend battery life like LED lighting installed throughout the boat. Also if you still have the OEM tube TV/DVD player that has to go and be swapped out with a modern LED with built in DVD. Just that TV alone can drain a battery dead in a few hours, where a new LED TV would run for days.

_________________
1981 Columbia 8.7
2015 Yamaha FZR - 87mph - sold
2006 Yamaha GP1300R - sold
2003 Chaparral 215 SSI - sold
2009 Stingray 195CS - sold
2000 Four Winns H180 - sold
1976 O'day Daysailer II - sold
Rick's Four Winns H180 Mods/Upgrade Thread

I have 2 refridgerators, batteries are just one year old, I am trying to figure out if I need to shut off the port or starboard switch off when I am on the hook, I should probably shut one of them down so I don't drain all of the batteries

Well I'm not just talking about the switches, that's of non importance. Everything has to be accounted for. Every light, what model refrigerators, inverter, tv, radio, every little thing that draws power. One you know your power draw you can do simple math to calculate battery run time based upon what model batteries you have. Battery models being the most important. No two batteries are alike. What matters is their amp hour rating. The higher their rating, the more power they store (divided in half).

Lets say you have a standard deep cycle.. 75 amp hour capacity. They usually rate them using a 1 amp load, so that battery til it runs dead (10.5v) can run 5 amps for 75 hours. You never run a deep cycle that low and most inverters will cut off way before that, so to be safe you use half.. or 40 amp hours until you recharge. 5 amps being roughly 62 watts. The average fridge runs 3 to 5 amps. Let's say 5 for easy math. 10 amps for two fridges.

One 75amp/hr battery will run those two fridges for roughly 4 hours. Two batteries in parallel, 8 hours. Watch TV, lights, etc... you simply do not have enough storage capacity using my example standard size deep cycles to last overnight.

_________________
1981 Columbia 8.7
2015 Yamaha FZR - 87mph - sold
2006 Yamaha GP1300R - sold
2003 Chaparral 215 SSI - sold
2009 Stingray 195CS - sold
2000 Four Winns H180 - sold
1976 O'day Daysailer II - sold
Rick's Four Winns H180 Mods/Upgrade Thread

I understand what you are saying and thanks for your help, I have a generator I gues I can just power it up to recharge. My original question was can I shut down the port or the starboard battery so that it does not drain.?

Shutting the port and starboard switches wont do anything to hel your cause. Barring any battery issues, the most likly thing is you have the refrigerators turned up to high. make sure they are both set at like #2 or 3 when you are strictly on batteries. If you have them turned all the way up, you will run down batteries pretty quickly.

A fully charge house battery (ship systems), in good shape will go thru the night no problem, if your careful about power consumption.

_________________
Jeff

'14 Cruisers 380 Express "Simon Sez"
Merc 8.2 Mag MPI 380
DTS B3X, (x2) Axius Premier


(SOLD)
'08 V318
Merc 350 Mag MPI 300
DTS Seacore, B3 (x2)

Oh.

You never want to turn any of them off, ever, unless you're storing the boat for extended periods of time. If the boat's electronics are working correctly with both switches on "on" it will never let you drain the starting batteries dead so you can't start the boat. You have 3 batteries. Two starting and one "ships system" house for 12v cabin stuff (fridge, etc).

Also never ever run any engine with a switch off, even if you're running the port engine and the starboard switch is off, you will break that nice piece of $200 equipment that doesn't allow you to drain the batteries dead so you can't start.

If you know what you're doing you can flip the port side to Parallel overnight to get maximum 12v battery life (two batteries for 12v accessories, double amp hours) but you risk draining the starting battery for the port engine. The starboard battery is not tied into the 12v accessory system at all, and even with a drained port and systems battery it will still start the starboard engine and it's alternator will charge all 3 batteries so you can start the port engine.....eventually.


At no point what so ever in any situation should either starting battery go dead overnight with the switches on even if you totally flatline the systems battery overnight with the fridges and tv running. If they are, time to visit a mechanic. Either the isolator is toast, or someone fudged the wires in the battery compartment.

_________________
1981 Columbia 8.7
2015 Yamaha FZR - 87mph - sold
2006 Yamaha GP1300R - sold
2003 Chaparral 215 SSI - sold
2009 Stingray 195CS - sold
2000 Four Winns H180 - sold
1976 O'day Daysailer II - sold
Rick's Four Winns H180 Mods/Upgrade Thread

I would think the 298 is the same as my 328 in this regard. Here is an explanation I posted previously:

Each battery selector switch only controls 2 of the batteries, the respective engine and the ship systems battery (you called it 'house')

NORMAL OPERATION 'Battery switch ON'
Ship Systems Battery - All 12V systems not part of an engine, including bilge pumps, windlass
Engine Battery - All engine related tasks, including starting

This is where your switch should typically be.


ENGINE BATTERY DEAD, SHIP SYSTEMS GOOD 'Battery switch SHIP SYSTEMS'
Ship Systems Battery - All 12V systems not part of an engine, including bilge pumps, windlass + All engine related tasks, including starting
Engine Battery - Nothing

You can use this position if your engine battery is not starting the engine, and your ship systems battery is not run down. You might also use this if there is an issue with your engine battery, say an internal short.


EMERGENCY OPERATION 'Battery switch PARALLEL
Ship Systems Battery - All 12V systems not part of an engine, including bilge pumps, windlass + All engine related tasks, including starting
Engine Battery - All 12V systems not part of an engine, including bilge pumps, windlass + All engine related tasks, including starting

You can use this position if both your ship systems and engine battery function, but both are low on available current - this leaves the voltage at 12VDC but sums the current of both batteries. Careful with this one - if you leave it here and say go to the beach or anchor, you can drain both your engine and ship system batteries and have no way to start your engine.

In all cases the breaker labelled 'ship systems' on the battery switch panel allows 12VDC power to flow to all 12V systems that are not engine related, from where ever the selector switch says that power should come from. (OFF,ON and SHIP SYSTEMS - from ship systems battery / PARALLEL - from both engine and ship systems battery). Only the bilge pumps do not run through this breaker.

Leaving the port and starboard switches in the 'ON' or 'SHIP SYSTEMS' position will never drain your starting batteries, unless someone has hooked something (like a refrigerator) to a starting battery instead of the house battery.

_________________
1969 Chris Craft Commander 47
1999 Four Winns 328 Vista - SOLD

Also if you're wondering what everything does:

Ships system battery: Powers 12v panel in cabin, bilge pumps. Bilge pumps are hard wired, can't turn em off even if the circuit breaker is off.
Port battery: Runs the port engine
Starboard Battery: Runs the starboard engine

Ships System breaker: 12v panel battery on/off.
Port Switch On: Port Battery powers port engine only, not 12v panel.
Port switch in Ships System: Bypasses port battery entirely and ship's system battery runs both port engine and 12v. Used for emergency situation where the port starting battery has failed.
Port switch in Parallel: Both port and ships system batteries tied together. In case ship's system battery has failed/died, or if you're at Boat Captain Level 100, you get double the overnight battery capacity, just don't let it go flat*
Starboard switch on: Starboard battery powers starboard motor, not 12v panel. Either Both starboard and port engine charge this battery as long as the switch is on.
Starboard switch Ships System: Bypasses starboard battery. Ship's system battery runs both starboard engine and 12v. Used for emergency situation where the port starting battery has failed.

Never put both in parallel, that way you always have one starting engine to charge the dead batteries so you can fire up the other when it's voltage has raised high enough to crank.

_________________
1981 Columbia 8.7
2015 Yamaha FZR - 87mph - sold
2006 Yamaha GP1300R - sold
2003 Chaparral 215 SSI - sold
2009 Stingray 195CS - sold
2000 Four Winns H180 - sold
1976 O'day Daysailer II - sold
Rick's Four Winns H180 Mods/Upgrade Thread

All 12v accessories (fridges, etc) should be wired to the 12v breaker panel. An inverter if so equipped should be wired directly to the ships system battery. Hopefully you just have a bad isolator and nothing is wired wrong. Cheap and easy fix. If you're flipping batteries off like you stated, you probably fried the isolator. No biggie. Ship happens.

_________________
1981 Columbia 8.7
2015 Yamaha FZR - 87mph - sold
2006 Yamaha GP1300R - sold
2003 Chaparral 215 SSI - sold
2009 Stingray 195CS - sold
2000 Four Winns H180 - sold
1976 O'day Daysailer II - sold
Rick's Four Winns H180 Mods/Upgrade Thread