On our new boat, our Balmar SG200 goes goes from 100% soc to less than 75% soc over the course of a few days with no electrical loads. When I run the engine (or plug in to shore power) it takes about 45 minutes to get to the mid 80% range, then suddenly it will go to 100%. Our boat is on a mooring with no solar, and when we are on the boat overnight the house loads (we have all LED lighting and no refrigeration or heavy consumers) will draw it down slightly, but then by the next day it will drop quickly to low 80s. Some background information follows:
One of the projects on our new boat was complete re-wiring of the engine harness, new engine instrument panel, new AC/DC panels, new charger, batteries, ELCI, external voltage regulator, ACR, etc. The alternator is an older Balmar 91-75 rebuilt to 90amp. The boat came with a Balmar BRS-II regulator that was only allowing <14 volts output. During our delivery we motored the majority of the 3 days. After that the engine was run for an hour or two for a couple of days on the weekend. The new regulator is a Balmar ARS-5, programmed using the charging specs from my battery manufacturer. When I monitor the output it reports that it is doing exactly what it is programmed to do. Along with all of that I installed an SG200 battery gauge. The boat has a house bank of two group 31 batteries, and a group 27 reserve battery. When we bought the boat it was 400 miles away, and I made many weekend trips over the winter preparing it so sail home. I installed the batteries early this year, they had a full charge, but were not used until April when the boat was launched. The boat spent two weeks in the water prior to our delivery, and during this time the ProMariner charger was left on, because I wanted the bilge pump to be able to run as much as necessary since I was not there to monitor the boat. I programmed the charger for the house bank prior to using it. I plan to take a refractometer to the boat today to check the cells in both batteries as I am not sure what else could be causing this?
One of the projects on our new boat was complete re-wiring of the engine harness, new engine instrument panel, new AC/DC panels, new charger, batteries, ELCI, external voltage regulator, ACR, etc. The alternator is an older Balmar 91-75 rebuilt to 90amp. The boat came with a Balmar BRS-II regulator that was only allowing <14 volts output. During our delivery we motored the majority of the 3 days. After that the engine was run for an hour or two for a couple of days on the weekend. The new regulator is a Balmar ARS-5, programmed using the charging specs from my battery manufacturer. When I monitor the output it reports that it is doing exactly what it is programmed to do. Along with all of that I installed an SG200 battery gauge. The boat has a house bank of two group 31 batteries, and a group 27 reserve battery. When we bought the boat it was 400 miles away, and I made many weekend trips over the winter preparing it so sail home. I installed the batteries early this year, they had a full charge, but were not used until April when the boat was launched. The boat spent two weeks in the water prior to our delivery, and during this time the ProMariner charger was left on, because I wanted the bilge pump to be able to run as much as necessary since I was not there to monitor the boat. I programmed the charger for the house bank prior to using it. I plan to take a refractometer to the boat today to check the cells in both batteries as I am not sure what else could be causing this?