e7 chartplotter goes down when I start my engine
- Thread starter cramina
- Start date
The voltage is too low for the chartplotter while the starter is engaged. What's your battery set up?
You have a few options & possibilities:
*Start your engine, then turn the plotter on (easiest solution)
*Your battery bank is getting weak / long in the tooth
*Your battery bank is too small to support electronics range voltages when starting the motor.
*Your battery wiring is undersized and your plotter ties into this wiring compounding voltage drop in the wiring with the voltage sag of the batteries when starting
*You can add another battery to your house bank to help minimize voltage sag during starting
*You can re-wire for a dedicated hard wired starting battery that is not on the same circuit as the electronics.
What do you have for batteries?
Engine?
Battery cable gauge?
Battery switch?
Batteries
I would check your batteries and maybe wake up call batteries getting old
weak and also direct wired to panel check and not wired to some thing
else with chartplotter.
Nick
I would check your batteries and maybe wake up call batteries getting old
weak and also direct wired to panel check and not wired to some thing
else with chartplotter.
Nick
Stupid question here, but otherwise to save money, why would your electronics be on the starting battery bank and not the house bank? Please, not being critical, but even on my small tub I have two banks, one starter and one house.
I have the same issue and there's no easy solution regardless of all other comments other than turn off electronics when engaging starter.
You cannot have the engine start on one battery while the house is on another. The A-B-BOTH switch is just that. Everything from A, everything from B or everything from Both. When in both, A will drain into B or vise versa if not charged at the same level. If you wire the starter directly to battery A, then you will not be able to start with B if A dies.
Don't get me wrong, there are ways to resolve this problem but it will take sophisticated rewiring, battery isolators and combiners etc...if you are willing to invest the money. The easiest way is to restart the chartplotter or turn it off before you start the engine. Good luck.
Lee
I changed my A B Both switch to a blue seas system 5511e switch and 7610 charging relay to eliminate this issue. All I do now is turn on the switch. This independently energizes both the house circuit and the starting circuit. When voltage is low, like when sitting at anchor eating lunch with the engine off, the circuits are seperate. Once the engine is started, voltage increases, the charge relay closes, and both banks recieve charge from the engine alternator. No more forgetting to change from the Both setting while relaxing at the end of the day!
Brian I will take it that a dedicated starting battery bank is composed of a starting type battery and is isolated from the house bank. The use of that type of battery is limited to its starting function and would not combine well with the house bank. In turn if deep cycle batteries are used and combined into the house bank you can increase its capacity as well easily start the engine. We have set up two house banks which can be combined or isolated at will via a battery switch. Each bank is capable of starting the auxiliary diesel by itself and when isolated can provide back up to each other in an emergency. Our setup meets our needs and is simple and more efficient than if we ran two separately storage systems. A bad battery can bring down a single bank so redundancy is quite useful. We can transfer all our electronics from one bank to the other at the flip of a switch.
Yes, I did exactly the same thing. My house bank is 2 grp 27 deep cycle and my start battery is a smaller battery dedicated for the purpose. I don't really see the point in having redundant banks if you monitor the batteries and know they are healthy. The switch is as easy as On and Off. No need to worry about house electronics being affected by the start surge.
Benny, my starting battery is two GP24's and my house bank two GP27's. The house is on solar while the starting is on a charger dockside, and also charges with the motor running. So I keep mine segregated per their primary function. I understand on larger boats that might not be the best course of action, but on mine it works out. Since I use an outboard, two GP24 batteries are an overkill.