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Doral
BoatUS Boat Groups/Manufacturer Forums>>Doral

Topic: Odd battery drain

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NW_Vermont
"Seaman"

Joined: September 14 2005
Posts: 33

Posted: July 08 2010 at 10:51 \| IP Logged

Cross-post from Repairs and Maintenance-

Hi all- I post here once in a while and check in once in a while to catch up. I have an odd battery draw condition I hope you can help with.

Boat: 2004 Doral Intrigue (310) Second owner.

Battery Systems: Dedicated port/starboard for the engines and a single series 29 deep cycle battery for the "house". No modifications from factory are apparent. Cables are labeled from the factory and are in the proper locations. Generator is fully independent, like usual. The batteries were deemed healthy after load tests this spring.

Dorals like mine don't have the manual on/off/1/2/parallel battery switches. I have one on/off switch for each of the three batteries described above. The boat has a system that knows which batteries to charge (from the engines) first- such as the engine batteries having a higher priority over the house battery. The battery charger will charge all three at once, I believe. The boat also has a Boost function, linking some of the batteries together when the button is pushed. This works properly and I don't believe it to be a factor in my problem.

Phew! Okay, so we are on the hook a lot daytime and over night. When we use enough juice to significantly drain the batteries, the house battery will be drawn down to, say, 9 or 10 volts and the port side engine battery would be down to about the same voltage. Starboard is fine. As I type this, it seems like they are linked in parallel, but they shouldn't be.

Is anybody familiar with this type of system? The manual doesn't help. I have an isolator, however I'm not familiar with how it is supposed to function. I would expect, and I WANT, only the house battery to be drawn down when I'm playing the stereo for hours or fridges all night.

When I'm assured of proper operation, then I will upgrade my house battery. I want to properly fix the problem(s) if I have one before investing in upgraded batteries.

Thanks in advance.

NW_Vermont

__________________
2004 Doral Monticello

Taylor Made
"Seaman"

Joined: May 30 2009
Posts: 20

Posted: July 12 2010 at 23:10 \| IP Logged

Ok. I have a 2008 Intrigue. Same battery switch set up as you described.

However, my weird battery is the starboard engine side. By the end of last season, I had to use the boost switch to start the starboard side when out on the hook for a night or two.

I replaced both engine batteries and the house battery this season. No problems yet. The batteries that were in the boat were cheap, I put in 2 optima's and a trojan house battery.

I have noticed that the windlass and many of the helm lights are using power from my starboard engine battery too. My bet is that the bildge pumps, CO dectors, stereo memory and other systems that need to be on all the time are connected to both the house and one engine battery.

You might want to get a good Deep Cycle house battery and a dual purpose starting battery, like the blue top Optima, for your port engine. They can take more abuse and might be a fix to your problem.

NW_Vermont
"Seaman"

Joined: September 14 2005
Posts: 33

Posted: July 13 2010 at 07:08 \| IP Logged

Thanks!

I believe you'll find that the starboard battery is the battery that will provide power to your "always-hot" items like bilge pumps and stereo memory. That is the way mine is and is confirmed by the schematics in the manual.

My windlass is powered by my house battery, I'm pretty sure. Pretty easy to check, though. I'll check next time I'm on the boat.

I'm reasonably confident in my batteries, via a load test and monitoring for voltage over weeks this past winter. Stranger things have happened, though.

Thanks again.

NW

__________________
2004 Doral Monticello

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