Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Here's what's going on. Brand new boat under warranty.
Took the boat to the marina for oil and gear lube change. Had a starting issue worked out. This took two weeks. After the starting issue was fixed I was leaving the marina in my boat on the water and the gps and stereo wouldn't power up. Told the service guy. He looked at the battery switch and it was off. The motor was running and the battery switch was off. He turned the battery switch to "1" and the stereo and gps came on. He said your good to go. I asked should the motor be able to start and run with the battery switch in the off position? He said yes. After a conversation with him I accepted his reply and would confirm with Merc later in the week. While leaving the marina (again) I noticed that my neutral light wouldn't turn off, always on. Whether in gear or in neutral. And my throttle only switch wouldn't engage "throttle only". Back to the marina. Took them a week and a Merc rep to visit them to fix. So after all the parts and cables were replaced that's fixed per the marina. I called the marina and they said boats ready to pick up. I asked about the battery switch wiring and they said it's correct. I asked if the motor should start with the battery switch off. Reply, yes per Merc. I contacted Merc and was informed "no" the motor should not start. Merc sent me a wiring diagram. So I'm supposed to go pick up my boat without being on the same page as the marina. I told them about the wiring diagram and sent it to them and am waiting their response.

I posted earlier this week about the proper wiring of a battery switch and whether or not the motor should start when in the off position and the majority of the answers are "NO". So that's where I'm leaning as well. Why have a switch if the motor will start in the off position? My switch is a Blue Sea brand not a Perko as I thought. But the wiring is basically the same between the two.

I see my options as being:
1. fix it myself
2. take my boat somewhere else (brand new boat under warranty) But I don't know if I can take it somewhere else without paying to
for the fix.
3. leave it like it is (don't know if any harm will result but reluctant to leave it like it is)

Fix it yourself. there is a dual battery thread going on right now that has 11 pages of highly relevant information that you should be able to fix it in about 5 min. Just kidding. Its under warranty. Make them do it right. Off means off. Good luck and God Bless.

I would go with what Mecury told you and since you sent that and the wiring diagram to the marina they should too. If they don't then contact Merc and lodge a complaint.

The trouble is that the wiring of the Perko switch is outside of Mercury's responsibility. It's not up to Mercury to pay an authorized dealer to properly wire something that was installed by the boat manufacturer or the dealership.

We're not talking about a $20 fix @ $110 per hour at an average marine dealer labor rate. The question is whether the switch was dealer installed or installed by the hull manufacturer?

But if it's just a quick rerouting of wires, I'd just do it myself.

And then I'd try not to ever grace the doors of the dealership. If they cannot get a simple switch wired right, how would they handle a CAN/BUS module failure on the engine?

Back home today. Picked up the boat yesterday. Here's what I found out and what "might" be done.
The marina is on my side. The marina believes that the switch (which I found out is a Blue Sea switch) should be wired as Merc recommends. Which is "off" means no current to the motor. Here's the problem. The manufacture of the boat wired the switch.
The wiring was confirmed by looking at other Berkshire boats as well. So next week the marina is going to contact Berkshire and explain the problems with the wiring. Another problem that could result from this wiring discrepancy is if you don't follow a certain procedure changing out batteries you can erase the memory on the computers and the fix is to have the marina send make a service call and reprogram the computer. Wow!!! So it appears that I have stumbled upon a flaw and hopefully it will be resolved in the near future. As it is now my boat will start, run and charge the batteries with the switch in the "off" position. I did find out this weekend that it costs $127 for me to drive my boat to and from the marina back to my house. But it will take several trips to add up to all the expense of a trailer.
Troy

Personally, if they don't fix it for free then I would not worry about it. The primary reason for me to have a battery swtich is to kill anything on the boat that might be causing a power draw or if some idiot (me) forgot to turn something off.

I have had dual battery setups on the past on fishing boats but that was because I had batt 1 as cranking and batt 2 for trolling, live well, etc.

My new I/O boat and my 1 year old SouthBay have a master power switch on the instrument panel BUT you can still crank the boat with the panel switch set to off.

In other words, I personally see no harm in how it is currently wired (if I am reading your descripiton correctly) and would not let it bother me.

It sounds like you need power to the Verado to keep the firmware in the motor from being erased. You may want to confirm that with Mercury.

Texoma Toon wrote:It sounds like you need power to the Verado to keep the firmware in the motor from being erased. You may want to confirm that with Mercury.

That would be the most stupid hardware design ever created since the invention of non-volatile memory. I'm thinking that the probability of this is less than one percent. ECM's have had NVRAM since before the advent of OBDII diagnostics back in the mid 90's, from an automotive POV. NOT using NVRAM in a marine application where routine maintenance includes removing the battery from the boat, would be intensely stupid.

BobG wrote:NOT using NVRAM in a marine application where routine maintenance includes removing the battery from the boat, would be intensely stupid.

Remember, these are "Engineers" we are talking about. they do whatever they want when they want! Quit trying to use common sense.. it will just hurt your head and confuse them.

BobG wrote:

Texoma Toon wrote:It sounds like you need power to the Verado to keep the firmware in the motor from being erased. You may want to confirm that with Mercury.

That would be the most stupid hardware design ever created since the invention of non-volatile memory. I'm thinking that the probability of this is less than one percent. ECM's have had NVRAM since before the advent of OBDII diagnostics back in the mid 90's, from an automotive POV. NOT using NVRAM in a marine application where routine maintenance includes removing the battery from the boat, would be intensely stupid.

Geeze Bob I didn't mean for youtogetyour panties in a wad....... It was just a suggestion.

ronb wrote:

BobG wrote:NOT using NVRAM in a marine application where routine maintenance includes removing the battery from the boat, would be intensely stupid.

Remember, these are "Engineers" we are talking about. they do whatever they want when they want! Quit trying to use common sense.. it will just hurt your head and confuse them.

HEY! I used to be one of those engineers...
Then I broke my hardware habit, and moved into software...

may have lost exactly where we are with this thread, but northern use to sell a device that hooked to the battery terminal directly an you could kill the power right there. Sort of an anti theft switch.
doc

My old International 856D tractor had one of those. Even after replacing the alternator/regulator and fixing all the wiring gremlins I still had a battery drain (slow but it was still there) until I installed the battery switch. It looked just like this..

No way that ECU isn't "burned in" as they say. Just do it yourself. you'll have the satisfaction of knowing you did it yourself and you'll know it's done right. It's real simple, here's the diagram:

slingshot wrote:No way that ECU isn't "burned in" as they say. Just do it yourself. you'll have the satisfaction of knowing you did it yourself and you'll know it's done right. It's real simple, here's the diagram:

Thats how my Verado is wired, haven't had a problem yet!
When Eric Simons reconfigured my ECU, he said it has "Adaptive Memory" so it learns the most recent "Events" and will correct any glitches that may it may have seen, including a low voltage drop.
My Etec's ECU would Retest itself every so often, you could hear it fire up, when the boat was in storage. Of course the battery was in it. I always had a Battery Maintainer on it, just in case it wore the battery down, during off season.

Sorry, got off track again!
Good Luck with it Troy!
Hows the lake? Quieting down? Haven't been down since August! Oh, and how are your EzFenders doing? I need pics, yet!
Bryan