New rectifier and new battery. Still over 15 volts at idle... What next?

[honda460ex]

Lol, my saga never ends... To anyone who has followed my troubles with the vacuum issue I had recently, the motor is running great now! But I have another issue...

I noticed a while back when testing on muffs the voltage would rise and rise the longer the boat idled. Figured the rectifier was bad. Replaced it. Still an issue. Bought a CDI rectifier next time around. Still overcharging. Before all of this though I replaced the stator with a CDI stator and the trigger also with a CDI (which was the cause of my vacuum issue from another post). The trigger was wired incorrectly from the manufacturer and I temporarily have the wiring compensated on the outboard until I can work something out with CDI. The way the trigger is wired runs fine now though. I just swapped a couple of wires around off of the powerpacks to compensate for CDI's screw up.

Back to the problem though. I replaced the battery today with a brand new one and I am still having the overcharging issue. I hate to even ask this question, but could it be possible that I got a bad stator from CDI as well?

I am heading back out to the garage in a minute just to double check all of my grounds, but I don't think that is it.

I can remove one of the yellow wires from the stator to the rectifier and the charging will drop back down to 12.4-12.5 and keep the battery charging it seems.

Thoughts all?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Capt Ken]

Re: New rectifier and new battery. Still over 15 volts at idle... What next?

12.5 is not charging. That is just battery voltage and is not a fully charged battery. 12.9 is a fully charged battery and ideal charging voltage is 13.9. Be sure your gauge is correct by checking the voltage at the battery with a good meter.

 

[honda460ex]

Re: New rectifier and new battery. Still over 15 volts at idle... What next?

Will do... The voltage I am getting is coming from my digital fish finder. I had hoped it would be right but you never know. Last time out before this it was ready all the way to nearly 17 volts. It will climb slowly from around 13 and in five minutes or so you would be looking at 15 volts and still climbing. This is all at an idle too. I will recheck it though when i get a chance.

 

[wired247]

Re: New rectifier and new battery. Still over 15 volts at idle... What next?

A bad rectifier isnt going to cause an overcharge. Wiring in a voltage regulator will take care of the overcharge problem. Just because the factory was too cheap to put one in doesnt mean you can't correct their problem.

 

[honda460ex]

Re: New rectifier and new battery. Still over 15 volts at idle... What next?

Hey wired247, where do I get a voltage regulator for this thing? The only thing I am seeing that will work is part # 154-6770 which I already have. And on CDIs website they call it a rectifier/regulator.

The outboard is an '83 Mariner 115 hp Inline 6

 

[wired247]

Re: New rectifier and new battery. Still over 15 volts at idle... What next?

Its not a regulator. That 154-6770 is just a rectifier. Turns AC to DC but doesnt regulate the voltage. You can use just about any voltage regulator and wire it into the circuit. The Mercury 815279T will rectify to DC and regulate to 14.4 but to be honest you could use just about any externally mounted regulator and diode set . Motorcycles, cars etc. OMC's have a good regulator set thats often cheap

There are cheaper replacements for the mercury made part if you want to stay marine specific.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MERCURY-MAR...hash=item19d61f7b71&item=110966569841&vxp=mtr


Usually the inlines don't overcharge too much but if you arent using the "right" battery there can be problems sometimes. Mine would run mid to high 16's sometimes and I would also cringe. As far as power driven accesories most modern electronics don't care about high voltage swings since they knock the incoming voltage down with a Zeiner diode to 5V for board voltage control but batteries can get cooked pretty wuick with 17 Volts off the old style non regulated stators. Some outboard charging systems are a lot weirder than they need to be.

 

[honda460ex]

Re: New rectifier and new battery. Still over 15 volts at idle... What next?

Thanks wired247! I went ahead and ordered that one you gave me the link to. I have a deep cycle as the starting battery right now and it is supposed to be a cranking battery as well. But I am going to get my wiring sorted out this week and redo some things. Going to put all of my electronics and such on my 12v side of my 24v setup for the trolling motor. Not the best for that first battery I know, but o well. I am going to get another battery just for cranking and firing the big motor. Going to move all accessories that were wired up with the outboard so it is JUST the outboard on that battery and hopefully that will help to alleviate any future headaches. Trying to get this thing sorted out so I can go out of town next week for a week long fishing trip. I don't have a lot of time to trouble shoot. Lol, order parts now and hope all goes well!

 

[Georgesalmon]

Re: New rectifier and new battery. Still over 15 volts at idle... What next?

Just to make you feel better, I too had the same problem with the stock rect. When I replaced it with the one mentioned above it worked great. Charging volts never go above 13.5ish now. My concern was that I didn't like all my electronics getting 16v+ using the stock rect. The only problem I had was mounting it. The new one is a bit larger than the stock one. I had to make a small aluminum mounting plate to accomplish that. I used a 1/8" aluminum plate because they do create some heat when operating and I wanted a good heat sink.

 

[buzzm19]

Re: New rectifier and new battery. Still over 15 volts at idle... What next?

I had the same problem with my 78 l6 115hp, and after a lot of research on iboats I found out that those older models do not have a volt regulator and use the battery to keep the voltage down. At the time I was using a gel battery, when I switched to the acid bases battery my voltage problem returned to normal. Thanks to iboats Buz

 

[honda460ex]

Re: New rectifier and new battery. Still over 15 volts at idle... What next?

Thanks guys! Iboats is great... I'll post back later this week or first of next just to let everyone know for sure that it fixed it. After hearing from you all I am pretty confident I won't have a problem... Thanks again.

 

[Fastrack]

Re: New rectifier and new battery. Still over 15 volts at idle... What next?

Thanks guys! Iboats is great... I'll post back later this week or first of next just to let everyone know for sure that it fixed it. After hearing from you all I am pretty confident I won't have a problem... Thanks again.

Did this fix your issue..?? I installed a snowmobile regulator on mine and I still have 14.94v at idle and 16.1v at WOT.

Ben