www.iFourWinns.com

Splashed this weekend and everything ran great. Went out for dock and dine, cruised around a little and boat ran great. When I got back to the dock I plugged in the shorepower as usual and we hung out with lights on and radio playing for about 1 1/2 hours. I happen to look at the main panel and noticed that the DC volts where pretty low. Just under 10V. and slowly dropping. First thing I did was check the battery charger and it was not working. (Meter on the front was at Zero) checked the breaker in the main panel and it was on. I cycled it off and then back on again. Still nothing. Then I discovered the house breaker in the panel near the transom door was popped so I reset it and the charger turned on however the needle pegged all the way to the right off the scale. It stayed on for a couple of minutes and then the house breaker in that panel near the transom door popped again. When the charger was on the DC volts went right up to just over 12V. I tried cycling this the shore power connectionoff then on again by disconnecting it from the boat completely. reconnected everything and flipped the breaker in the main panel to turn on the charger and the meter did the same thing, pegged all the way to the right off the scale. I felt the unit and it was warm but not to the point that you couldn't keep your hand on it. after a couple of minutes the house breaker popped again. I called the manufacturer and spoke with their technical service department and they don't know what could be causing this. They asked me to put a volt meter around the output cable from the charger and see what it reads then get back to them. Any suggestions??????? Anyone else experience any charger issues on a V358? the charger is "Charles marine" 5000 series 40amp.

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2008.Fourwinns V358
1999 SeaRay340 Sundancer
1989 SeaRay 260 Cuddy

Sorry to hear about your troubles. I can only offer that I do not think it is unusual for the meter on that charger to be pinned. I saw this on mine on my old house battery when it was discharged and I was also drawing a load on the 12V circuitry.

I don't recall - do you have the original house battery or did you change the setup at some point? If it's the original, it could well be done. I wouldn't think that would pop the breaker but perhaps the demand on the charger was just too high with the draw from other gear. Anyway, now I'm beyond my knowledge base but I wanted to tell you about the meter not being so abnormal.

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Previously:
2008 V358/Volvo 5.7 GXi Inboards

sounds like a bad battery, "10 volts and dropping". A charger trying to charge a shorted battery will trip the internal output breaker or the external input breaker. Have the battery(s) checked.

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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)

I think that Jeff makes a good point. You might try disconnecting one battery at a time and see if you can isolate the problem.

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Martin
04 268 Vista - Knot Again
08 Boston Whaler 130 Sport - Double Good
Previous Boat:
97 278 Vista - Buoy Howdy

Ok so got back to the boat and house battery as dead. I had left everything off including the charger. I had to flip the charger on to get the engine hatch to open. Once it was open I shut the charger off. Made sure all systems were off. Checked house batery voltage and it was only 8 volts. Checked each engine batery and they read 15 volts on each.. Turned the charger back on and this time the needle did not peg all the way to the right. It went up to 40amps and slowly dropped to about 35. House breaker was fine and system was charging normally. I am going to replace the house battery this week. Then will look at adding a second batery in series.

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2008.Fourwinns V358
1999 SeaRay340 Sundancer
1989 SeaRay 260 Cuddy