Re: Evinrude Charging Problem
Greetings, and welcome to iboats,Mike.<br />The manufaturer's shop manual is allways by far, the best. but you'll pay thru the nose for one.<br />Unless you intend to do a rebuild someday , my advice would be the Clymer or Seloc. I can't narrow it down any further, as I don't have any bombardiers, but the guys will post thier opinions too.<br />Being a Merc/Force guy, I can only generalise it.<br />On the typical outboard, the stator has windings in it, that act as a generator would. Sometimes, the voltages it puts out are in the 100's of volts, and it is AC (alternating current).<br />Batteries require a regulated source of 13.8Volts DC (direct current).<br />So, the output of the stator is first regulated, by knocking down the voltage to something a bit more palletable for your battery.It is then rectified, or converted into DC with a series of diodes called a "Bridge network", or 4 diodes connected in such a way as to not allow the voltage they receive to be passed in both directions (converting it into DC).<br />The rectifier and regulator may be in one plastic box together, or seperately packaged.<br />They can be transposed, depending on the maker and engine.<br />Some older outboards, did not even have a charging circuit, but yours (being a 96) surely does.<br />It's output will be less than 8amps.<br />On these systems, it is vitally important, that you never disconnect the charging circuit on a running engine, as it could destroy the charging circuit, and in some cases, the expensive switchbox.<br />Test with a standard amp gauge,and/or voltmeter.<br />Ammeter should show a charge. A volt/ohm meter should show 12VDC engine off, and climb to 13.8VDC gradually, on a running engine.<br />Some regulators on outboards are terrible!!<br />They will pass as much as 18VDC. This is fine on a dead battery, but can quickly boil a charged battery to an early death. so check the battery after a trickle-charge out of the boat, on the bench..After charge, check the battery after a few days,for any drop in voltage. If it looses juice,replace the battery, as your charging circuit has fried the old one.<br />One trick boaters use to prevent this, is to run a two-battery system, (with a dash-mounted voltmeter) and keep one discharged slightly, and keep alternating the two.Run all electrics and electronics on the off-line battery. This has the addded benifit of keeping some of the RF noise from the chargiing and igniotion systems, from interfering with the electronics' performance.<br />On this type of system, your old fried battery could serve as a charging circuit dump,proteccting the one good battery. Just something to consider for the future, if you find it is needed.
