Stephen Trapani wrote in news:JTN1o.45739
:

So since I have no shore power, could the bilge switch itself be
eating
up a whole zinc within six months? There seems to be an unexplained
drain of the batteries also.



I've got one more interesting phenomenon for you to trace....acid paths
at and around the battery.

If there is ANY, and I mean ANY, hint of acid leaking out around a
battery terminal that may have made even the tiniest path to the
bilgewater and underwater metal fittings, thruhulls, a current will be
forced, by the batteries' normal voltage, through that CONDUCTIVE acid
path making another giant plating machine to the sea....eating zincs.

Pull each battery out of its box and look carefully at the surface of
the battery, especially around the terminals. If any terminals have an
encrusted salt around them, that terminal's seal is leaking. The acid
that climbs up by capillary action from inside the battery, by the leaky
post, will, eventually, make a path down into the battery box to leak
out "somewhere" and make a DC path to the bilge.

Don't washdown any batteries in the boat. That just spreads any acid
around and makes it worse. Inspect the batteries with your finger.
Acid bites your tongue if there's any on your finger. There will always
be "some" from the bubbling of overcharging batteries around the
vents....but not in the bottom of the battery box and beyond.

While you got em out, if you don't find any leakages, washdown the
batteries on the dock with lots of fresh water and let them dry before
putting them back in their boxes, which you will also washdown with wet
towels you don't treasure as the acid the towel hits will simply eat it
in no time....along with those jeans you were wearing when hauling the
batteries out of the bilge. Make sure you're only wearing clothes you
can throw out without crying next month if holes get eaten in them.
Battery acid loves cotton!

Replace anything that is leaking, of course. They get banged around
hard in the surf, especially most boat batteries that aren't strapped
down properly. Imagine your boat just pitchpoled, mast pointing down.
Do you think those batteries will stay in place and NOT move if the boat
is upside down? If not, fix that too! I'm amazed at the number of
sailboats whos batteries are just sitting in unsecured boxes waiting to
smash "something" or "someone" in a laydown emergency situation. Little
dinky cheap plastic strapping ISN'T going to hold a 300AH beast in its
pasteboard box.





--
iPhone 4 is to cellular technology what the Titanic is to cruise ships.

Larry

Stephen Trapani wrote in
:

Larry wrote:
Stephen Trapani wrote in news:JTN1o.45739
:

So since I have no shore power, could the bilge switch itself be
eating up a whole zinc within six months? There seems to be an
unexplained drain of the batteries also.



Assuming the negative terminal of the batteries is connected to the
block of the engine, most are, AND if there is ANY leakage path
between the positive terminal of the batteries to the sea, yes, it'll
gobble up the zincs in no time....sometimes eating the prop, rudder,
other underwater metals connected to DC ground inside the boat.

When you say "bilge switch" are you referring to the bilge pump float
switch?

Yes.

Stephen


The bilge float switch is certainly a possible leakage path. A good
half of them I've encountered were wirenutted to the wiring, completely
unsealed, another leakage path to battery + terminal. Disconnect the +
and - wires for the bilge pump from the battery
terminals....completely. Submerge the pump and float switch completely
by just pulling a hose off a thruhull and flood the boat with seawater
to just over the pump. Connect one lead of your ohmmeter on the highest
resistance scale to any submerged metal object like the engine mounts
that are now under seawater to get a good connection to the conductive
water. Keeping the open ends of the wires out of the water, measure the
resistance from each power wire to that underwater metal piece. It
should read infinite resistance....no conduction path, whatsoever, even
though the pump is submerged. If you get any resistance lower than
infinity, disconnect the interconnecting wire between the float switch
and the pump to isolate them from each other. Now unconnected from each
other, test each of the two parts for resistance to determine which one
of them is leaking into the seawater. Replace it. Retest the new
installation before repowering it DIRECTLY TO THE BATTERY through a
separate appropriate fuse mounted much higher than the bilge and
completely separate from everything else in the boat.

I'm always horrified to find a bilge pump connected to a breaker panel
that's SO easy to flip off when in a hurry to leave the boat in its
storage position.....with no live bilge pump to keep her afloat! I
never install bilge pumps that aren't a real pain in the ass to shut
OFF. NO ON-OFF BILGE PUMP SWITCHES!! I can't figure why Rule even
sells one! IT has 3 positions...automatic, OFF and on. Off? Why would
anyone ever set the bilge pump to OFF?! Are they crazy?! "I think my
bilge pump is broken. There's water in my bilge.", captain X says to
me. "Do you have a breaker or bilge pump switch?", I query. "Sure!",
he says, proudly. "You won't when I'm done with it.", I growl.

A boat sank. A diver was retrieving personal stuff from the hull 24'
down. "Can you check to see if you see a bilge pump breaker on the main
power panel or a bilge pump switch?", I asked him. The look on his face
when he came up again told all I needed to know. The goddamned bilge
pump switch was set to OFF! Duhh!

If yours is like that rewire the bilge pump DIRECTLY to a high mounted
inline fuse with HEAVY wire so you can high fuse it safely, DIRECTLY TO
THE BATTERY TERMINALS without any battery switches, breaker panels, or
any kind of switch that can turn the pump OFF at all! That pump needs
to have power if there's even a little power left in the dead
batteries....the last electrical device STILL RUNNING when she goes
under for the last time!



--
iPhone 4 is to cellular technology what the Titanic is to cruise ships.

Larry