[tlschneider]

I hope you can follow this. I have a 1997 2900 Open, twin Crusdaer 454 efi. Of course I have two wet starting batteries and two gel mat house batteries.

I have used the boat in the Chesapeake during trophy striper season about 6 times, then had a cruise to watch the Bluer Angels perform at the Naval Academy. On that trip the transmission on the starboard engine went bad. I had to replace it with a new transmission. The repair marina had all of the battery systems turned off. Subsequent to the transmission work I have taken a few cruises of 2-3 hours. Last week I left my home port to take a trip, my gauges looked fine. Then as I got into a slow speed zone I noticed both volt gauges were reading at idle below12 volts. I think I would have noticed them reading below 12 volts before then, but I can't say for sure. I do watch my gauges, but mostly the oil pressure and engine temperature gauges. After I saw the low volts, I accelerated and the meter responded to just above 12 volts. I made the trip, 1.5 hours running at cruising speed, plugged in over night to shore power and made the return trip with the same voltage readings.

That afternoon I checked my batteries one at a time with a multi meter, they read above 12 volts and when I started the engines, one at a time, the multi meter showed an increase in voltage at the battery to 13.6 volts. After some thought, I thought I should check the volts at the volt meters, it seems I shorted the meters, they now both read over 16. I check the volts coming to the volt gauges and they read 16.5. Then I checked the large breaker inside the engine, there is one from each engine. They were popped, so I reset, then I checked the batteries with the multi=meter. Both batteries are reading 16.5 volts w/o engines running.

This concerns me, I generally drive the boat to a marina for service, vs. paying for service call. Can anyone advise me.

Tom S in Annapolis