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Jonathan Ganz Jonathan Ganz is offline
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First recorded activity by BoatBanter: Sep 2006
Posts: 6
Default battery charger seems to have died

I got down to the boat yesterday and found someone had shut off
the AC circuit on the dock... no big deal, I don't like it, but it
happens, so I switched it on. Later, when I returned that night, I was
reading, and noticed that the cabin lights seemed to be getting more
and more dim. That was strange... and then I noticed that the familiar
hum (it was an old unit was no longer there. Started checking... AC
was fine. The DC panel appeared to be dead... no VHF, no manual bilge
override, no panel lights, nada.

The volt meter showed less than 5v from the batteries (2, start and
deep cycle). Not much I could do at night, so I turned off all DC
stuff, and figured I'd sort it out in the morning.

Woke up and discovered that I seem to at least have minimal DC
volts... no where near what it used to be on the volt meter, maybe 9v
with stuff working. Still no familiar hum. The longer I had a cabin
light on, the more dim it got.

I'm wondering if someone popped it by cycling the AC dock switch on
and off... I'd imagine there would be some sort of surge. I know they
were doing maintenance on the dock... AC power cords were sitting
around not connected to anything, and it wasn't like that when I was
there last.

Comments?
--
Capt. JG @@
www.sailnow.com