2006 Outback V - 10 volts at gauges

Guys,
I'm stumped and looking for some wiring help regarding a 2 volt drop somewhere in my 2006 Outback V with the Indmar 310 Carb engine. I replaced both batteries today thinking my old batteries may be the problem but the problem persists. When you turn the key to acc or all the way on on I drop to roughly 10.3 volts to all of the gauge panel which is causing the perfect pass stargazer wake edition to absolutely go bonkers cutting on and off.
I am getting a 12.5 or 12.6 volts reading at both batteries and the same at the bus bar under the instrument cluster.
I read on here that some of the older Moomba's had a Medallion controller that controlled the gauges but i'm not sure that applies to 2006 OBV. Is there anything y'all have heard of that may be causing a 2 volt drop or any other location i should check? I'm assuming its a grounding issue somewhere, but not sure where else to check.

I've cut the main lug to my perko and clamped a new connection on it. I've used a battery brush to scrape and clean all connection on the battery (+ and -) and Perko. I'm doubting it's the alternator as if it were bad I don't think i'd be getting 12.5 volts at my bus bar.

Any other suggestions of places to look?

Thanks
Ryan

I should clarify that things used to work fine with no additions or modifications. Last year Perfectpass started beeping on and off at idle but then once some rpm's went up it was fine and stopped. This year perfectpass beeps nonstop so much that my wife won't ride in the boat b/c it is so annoying. That's when I noticed such low voltage at the switches/gauges b/c I read on here about how particular Perfectpass is to voltage drops.

There are 2 ways I would go about this.

1 is start unplugging 1 gauge at a time and see if you get your voltage back.

2 is connect an AMP meter on the negative side of the battery bank, it will show your current amp draw, no go unplug things untill you find the amp draw.

If there is only amp draw when the key is on then you should see a substantial amp rate drop when you find the failing component.

To me it sounds like you have a short someplace.

I know on my 92, the wiring to the gauges was pretty bad. Lots of piggybacking. I was having voltage issues with my PP and I made sure to wire a GOOD connection to the PP so that I knew it got full voltage. corroded wires or terminals can certainly cause voltage drop. Perfect pass also has the ability to read voltage in one of the menus. Check out how much voltage PP is actually getting too.

Thx guys. Yeah my gauges appear to be daisy chained like crazy too. I'll see if I can figure out how to disconnect a gauge at a time to isolate the issue. I can't get the PP to stay on long enough to get to the voltage menu. I'll probably give it another shot tonight. Thx again for the feedback.

Start at a good power source (distro block or battery) and wire power and ground directly from good power source to the PP. That should solve your problems with getting enough voltage to the PP.

Likewise you could wire your volt meter the same way. a clean path instead of a daisy chain mess full of increasing resistance that leads to voltage drop.

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I am getting a 12.5 or 12.6 volts reading at both batteries and the same at the bus bar under the instrument cluster.

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Didnt read all the posts yet, but right here, you are within a couple feet of the issue. As they say, "getting warmer".

With your meter on a good ground, whats the voltage at the back of the gauge?

Voltage on the back of the gauge with ground on bus bar and + lead on gauge is 10.5 max (sometimes 10.2 or 10.3). When + voltmeter is on + bus bar and - is on - side of bus bar then it is 15.5. Is there any controller between the bus bar and each gauge or does Moomba just wire from in daisy chain fashion from bus bar to gauges? I couldn't find a wiring pinout on the 06 OBV.

Ok, seems to point that the voltage drop is on the positive leg, not the neg. So you have narrowed it down even more.

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Originally Posted by rjenkins

Voltage on the back of the gauge with ground on bus bar and + lead on gauge is 10.5 max (sometimes 10.2 or 10.3). When + voltmeter is on + bus bar and - is on - side of bus bar then it is 15.5. Is there any controller between the bus bar and each gauge or does Moomba just wire from in daisy chain fashion from bus bar to gauges? I couldn't find a wiring pinout on the 06 OBV.

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Moomba wires from the
Bus Bar to the Dash
Buss bar to ballast system
Bus Bar to Stereo.

Basically each major item. They daisy chain all the dashes and Ballast to run multiple items. You should be able to open the center floor tank and see your cables running through there.

But on the bus bar, if you track the main wire goign up the start of the daisy you can test each component with out unplugging it. You should see the voltage droping through the gauges

you can try disconnecting your PP guage, see if that makes a diff. Theres an article floating around here somewhere that says you can move the power for the PP from the tach to another location and youll get better voltage. I did it and i got another volt of power at my dash. you can also disconnect the 2 wire connection at the motor for the PP. there's only one 2 wire harness back there, near the servo motor.

Alright guys - posting the resolution here in case anyone else has a similar problem. After tracing the purple wire from the ignition it ultimately ran to the back of the boat. After a process of elimination it turned out to be a bad electronic choke on the Holley carb. As soon as I disconnected it, voltage jumped back up above 12.

One think to note on PerfectPass is that I tried disconnecting it to see if that was causing my issue and the boat would run for about 20 minutes and then throttle back to a top speed of about 5mph until I plugged it back in. I don't know if it took a bit for the Stargazer module to sync up with the throttle or what but it was definitely weird.

I live about 20 minutes from Discount Inboard Marine (www.skidim.com) and so I called them to get the replacement part. I can't say enough good things about those guys and their customer service. I drove up to pick up the part and Vince walked me to the back in his shop and showed me exactly how easy it was to put on and calibrate. Those guys know their stuff!!

Thanks again for everyone's help. Greatly appreciated!!

-Ryan