Brand new Makai died on the water

[Max20]

Are you the same guy who was talking about 2 prop hits on Lake Cumberland? Did you buy from Denney? Hopefully they can help - they tend to get overwhelmed right before a holiday weekend...[/QUOTE]

I’m the same guy who had 2 prop hits and am headed to Lake Cumberland in a week. Yeah, 2nd prop hit on Friday night, swapped to spare prop to run on Saturday and the boat died on the water....that’s lucky me!

Monday Update: I was at Delta prop when they opened this morning. Said there is a hairline crack in one of the blades so they can’t fix it - liability thing, so bought another new one.

Moomba dealer was very sympathetic and said to drop it off tonight and they will do everything in their power to get it fixed this week for our trip next week. The tech obviously needs to look at it, but initial thought based on my description of events is bad ignition switch.

[haknslash]

Hopefully they get you taken care of in time for your trip. Let us know the cause but I agree with others it sounds ignition switch related.

[Max20]

I know it’s been a minute however wanted to get back to everyone. There is a fuse block mounted on the engine which contains a 40a main fuse. Apparently it wasn’t seated well or the holder itself wasn’t holding the fuse blades tight enough. So the ignition switch was fine as were all the normal connections.

I got the boat the morning we planned to take off and have been at Lake Cumberland since Tuesday afternoon this week without issue.

[Isaguel]

Great to hear. Sometimes its the simplest things that stump us.

[Judge92du]

Interesting to hear this resolution. The same thing happened to me this past weekend. 2020 Makai with 30 hours. Running fine and then just died in the water. We pulled and pushed back in all fuses thinking that might be the case, but no luck. The ignition switch also seemed to not be working properly. The engine would try to crank over when we switch the key to the run position without turning all the way to 'start'. The boat is at the dealer now for review and fix. I'll be curious to see what they come up with. BTW, i was also told to run in the 1+2 position....interesting.

[TXSurf4]

So not to add to the battery confusion but...... here is the discussion that some people were referring to. It is all from 2017 in the "Autowake Questions" thread.

I am curious, do either of you have dual batteries in your boat and if so, where do you run your switch? Also, do you recharge your batteries often? I personally always run my switch in the "both" position and we keep the R&D boats batteries charged fairly often. Even if filling with engine off (which you can't do in 2018 ), it gives me a little extra battery bank to hold a slightly higher voltage.

This is interesting, as my dealer specifically advised never to run on both, always choose 1 or 2.

Well, the battery switch and recommended switch location has been a point of controversy over the years and internally we probably all don't see it the same way. The most conservative approach is to recommend the consumer leave the switch in the 1 or 2 position. IF you do that, and IF you charge your batteries often, then IF you were to be sitting on the lake all day listening to the stereo and the battery went dead, then you could theoretically switch it to the other battery, start your engine and go merrily on your way.

However, what I have found is most consumers do NOT charge their batteries often. And many consumers leave the switch in 1 position forever, never turning it off. If you leave the switch in the 1 position, then you would never be charging the 2nd battery as the alternator is completely separated from the 2nd battery. If you left it that all way all season without charging it, it is likely that if you ever did need the 2nd battery, it might be dead. In addition to that, running the engine and all accessories off 1 battery only will draw that battery down very quickly. Then discharging and charging that one battery often will then make that battery fail prematurely. Worst case is you end up having 1 battery that dies premature or doesn't hold a change very long, only to find out the other battery is also dead from not being charged.

That is why I personally always run my battery switch in both and charge often. One of the highest premature failures of deep cycle batteries is not charging them often enough or leaving them in a lower voltage situation for long times. In addition to that as I said before, if you are in the both position, then you have a true dual battery bank and it will not draw down your voltage near as quick when running ballast or stereo. In addition to that, the alternator will always be charging BOTH batteries when switch is in both. Granted, it can charge one battery at a time faster than 2, but I currently trailer my boat and I almost always end up having a decent run back to the dock at the end of the day when I am finished. Running the boat at a higher RPM increases the alternator output and seems to do a decent job of recharging the batteries. And like I said, we try and plug up the R&D boats very regularly which again tops off the charge to the batteries.

As a side note, I personally think some of the low voltage codes seen in some of the newer boats are also because most people are running the battery switch in 1 position and not charging the batteries enough. If you were to fill the ballast for 15 minutes, while listening to the stereo with key off, I could definitely see the one battery getting into the 11 volts or less range. That is when we start seeing "low voltage" and this amplifies the possibility of seeing the O2 sensor codes when you start back up. That is another reason we changed the 2018 ballast to only filling when the engine is running. While some people may not like it, with the 6 pumps running, it can drain the battery fairly quickly, especially with the battery in 1 position and key off. IF you do decide to run with the battery switch in "both" but want to sit and listen to the stereo for long times, then you can still move the switch to 1 battery only while you are sitting there. If you did that, then you would probably have a good backup battery if you run the 1 battery dead. Just remember to switch it back to both after you get started and then recharge the battery when you get home.

Hope that makes sense. Sorry about change in topic, but thought it might be helpful as some of you might want to try running the battery in the "both" switch and I hope that everyone will try and charge the batteries more often. Trust me, it will help!

Goose - not to completely hijack this AutoWake thread (which is awesome BTW) but I think maybe now you can see why there is some confusion on the battery setting. If I'm following along correctly, you have said you personally use the battery "1 + 2" setting all the time on the R&D boats and that is what you recommend. That being said, it contradicts what we are told in the Owner's Manual (quoted in the other thread).

Is the Owner's Manual being overly cautious in advising that the "1+2" setting only be used in emergency situations? What about the ground differentiation mentioned in respect to sensitive electronics onboard?

TIA for any clarification!

That is a good question and I will try to answer it as best as I can....

The guy that wrote that sits in the office next to mine. His job is customer service. As many of you know, they deal with problems all day because most of you happy customers never call him to tell him how much you love your boat. Because of that, they sometimes come across a little on the conservative side and especially conservative when we have prior issues with items. As the boats have gotten more electronically advanced, we have had issues with sensitive electronics. Some of that is our fault, some has been vendor issues, but truth is we have also had some issues that could have been avoided IF people would have used a little more common sense to start with. Again, that is when we really get overly conservative on the owners manual side. It reminds me of the warning on the coffee cup that says the liquid inside is hot. Granted, that was probably because of a stupid lawsuit, but I think you get my point.

Anyways, IF you use 2 different style batteries that have different voltages, then you could absolutely get ground differentiation. And having ground differentiation can cause ground loops and other issues. So, part of that statement is true. However, the way it currently reads, it sounds like it will definitely happen all the time and that part is not true. As I and others have said, we highly recommend you use 2 of the exact same style batteries that are sized appropriately and keep them properly charged. If you do that, then you should not have ground differentiation and in fact running them on the both switch location would probably help keep them from having ground differentiation to start with.

Hope that helps clear up the confusion. We are actually planning to change how we word that for the 2018 owners manuals.

I doesn't look like they changed the wording in my 2019 manual and I can't see the 2020 manual online so not sure about it there.

I have always run mine on "1+2" and if my boat is not on the water then the charger is plugged in. I guess it is just a good habit that I carried over from my fishing boat.