batteries

[Ed Shankle]

Battery experts, tell me if this makes sense;
Charged up my T-105 6 volt house batteries, got 3-4 balls floating on the hydrometer test, installed the batteries in TailWind and nothing worked! (yes, the main switch was on).
Double checked with a multimeter, and it read 0 volts! Since these are 6 volt batteries linked in series, the contacts were made on the positive pole of one battery and the negative pole of the other. The batteries were wired up in place. An additional hydrometer test gave the same results.
Is it possible to get these opposing results or are there other factors I'm not considering?

thanks,
Ed

[jentine]

Could you give us a picture of the installation?  It may clear-up the mystery.  Everything appears normal in your explanation.  If all the connections are clean and tight then the batteries may be shorted, internally.  The Hydrometer will still show good following a charge. :confused:
Jim Kane

[Ray & Sandy Erps]

Ed,

When you tested the voltage with a mulitmeter, was it on the battery poles, or at the fuse panel somewhere?  Does the multimeter work?  If the mulitmeter works and the test was done on the battery poles I would suspect a short inside one of the batteries, would disconnect the pair and test each one individually.  If the voltage test was done somewhere else in the boat, I would suspect a ground problem or that the main battery switch has failed.  Anyway, I would start testing the easy obvious stuff first.  You might even grab a 12 volt battery out of a car that you know is good and bring it down to the boat and use it in place of the six volt batteries to help troubleshoot.  

Electrical problems are fun if you like solving mysteries.

[Marshall Tonner]

Ed, check your battery connections. If one battery is in backwards then neither battery is connected to ground!

[Ed Shankle]

Turned out to be a loose ground wire back to the starting batteries. Saved buying new house batteries! Figured it had to be a ground after retesting them individually with the multimeter and getting 6.25 volts in each.

Ed