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Catalina/Capri 25/250 Sailor's Forums

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Depth gauge problem / dead battery?

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Bruce Baker
Captain

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USA
402 Posts

Initially Posted - 06/11/2008 : 11:29:08

I've got one of the original Signet depth gauges, and I've been getting a signal "19 E" error message. I've seen that before when my battery was low, but now I'm seeing it when my outboard motor is running. When I turn the motor off, the gauge reads normally.

My Nissan 8 outboard has an alternator, which goes into a rectifier. It looks like everything is hooked up right.

This may also be relevant: my 6-Amp battery charger won't fully charge the battery. The green light never comes on alone. The best I can get is one green and one red.

Any theories?

Bruce Baker
Falls Church, VA
"Yee Ha" 3573
'83SR/SK

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Sloop Smitten
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
1181 Posts

Response Posted - 06/11/2008 : 18:00:22

Bruce,
Do you have the charging circuit of the outboard hooked up when you are trying to charge the battery with the charger? My outboard (Honda) has a rectifier for handling the spark plugs and a separate one for charging. If your engine is like mine, your engine could be running fine and still have a problem with the charging circuit. If you are charging the battery without the engine wiring hooked up I would suspect a bad cell in your battery. At least your depth finder seems to be okay.

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Stardog
Captain

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USA
319 Posts

Response Posted - 06/20/2008 : 10:13:03

Hey Bruce,

Generally when the fully-charged light doesn't come on it's because the battery is not charged and that is almost always because the battery bad. Your depth sounder is telling you the same thing- 19E: low battery. If you put a volt meter on the battery, you'll probably find it significantly below 12V even after charging. It's probably time for a new battery.

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Voyager
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
5352 Posts

Response Posted - 06/21/2008 : 21:54:36

For a standard lead-acid plate battery (starting battery or deep discharge), Don Casey states:

Full Charge . . . . . . . . 12.6V
3/4 Charge . . . . . . . . . 12.4V
1/2 Charge . . . . . . . . . 12.2V
1/4 Charge (dangerously discharged) 12.0V
Dead . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.8V
(for GEL batteries, add 0.2V)

It's important to use a digital voltmeter (DMM) for this measurement, as it is difficult to discern 0.2 V on a 12 volt analog scale (VOM), unless the VOM is well calibrated. Simpson is traditionally a high quality brand, but if its out of cal, it won't do you much good.

Putting the numbers above into practice, if you have a 50 Amp Hour (AH) battery, the battery will have 50 AH available when it's charged to 12.6V, but when at 12.2V, it has only 25 AH left. If your battery gets down to below 12.2V, be sure to recharge it promptly.

Once a deep discharge battery gets down to below 1/3 power left, you must recharge it right away or risk shortening its life. This usually happens by creating "sulfation", in which a hard, insulating material begins coating the electrodes.

While sulfation is mainly irreversible, a little bit will not kill your battery outright. If you maintain charge thereafter, you can continue to use the batteries, albeit they will not deliver as much current in high demand uses, nor will they recover as quickly, as if they were brand new.

So, if you take your battery home and charge it on an automotive charger for a while, then see what voltage it reaches. Once you've charged it, let it sit for a few hours, then take your reading. If it makes 12.6V, you may have a good battery, but for some reason, it's not being fully recharged on the boat.

If it never makes it to 12.6V, then its time to buy a new battery. For a sailboat house battery, you should replace it with a deep discharge model.

Hope that gives you some testing guidelines to go by.

Edited by - on

Bruce Baker
Captain

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USA
402 Posts

Response Posted - 06/23/2008 : 09:59:20

Bruce,

Thanks for the helpful chart. I left the battery on the boat all winter, which I know was not helpful. They say that batteries never die natural deaths--they are all murdered.

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The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.