Perfect Pass power issues

[motive134]

Last week my perfect pass wakeboard pro randomly turned off and turned back on several times on my 2005 tige 22v. It has two batteries and a perko. Yesterday I did some troubleshooting, cleaned battery terminals which had some corrosion, checked alternator connections which looked good nothing loose, and checked inside perko again everything looked clean, nothing was loose. I then took it on the water and when filling or draining ballast perfect pass starts going crazy and voltage meter shows lower voltage than normal (10 or 11) at idle and is erratic when up to speed bouncing from 11 to 13. Then when done filling perfect pass worked fine. I then unplugged the power from perfect pass module and the voltage meter was reading completely normal. Any ideas on why this is happening? Thanks!

[Zenith]

Not familiar with the specifics but given boat is starting it is unlikely to be battery or charging problem. So either you problem with your buss feed to circuit breakers/switches or your earth return is poor. My guess is if you trace the ground wire back from perfect pass you will find a loose or corroded termination. You can measure voltage Between the negative terminal on volt meter or pp and the battery terminal. If you are getting a voltage drop (2 or 3 volts) when pumps are turned on then its a poor earth. Same measuring positive to battery terminal for a power feed fault.

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

[chpthril]

Sounds like a voltage drop to the helm, which can be on the B+ or B- side. I would seek that out and resolve first. Next would be to run a dedicated 12ga 2-conductor from the battery/switch to the PP module. Use a relay on B+ side thats triggered by the ignition key.

[motive134]

Ok thanks for the help! I'm going to check it out on Friday and trace the ground wire from the perfect pass module to see where it goes. The perfect pass customer service said basically the same thing they said it's a voltage drop somewhere. He told me sometimes on installation the ground gets connected behind one of the gauges in the dash which is not a very good ground and can cause these issues. Thanks for the help! I'll give an update Friday

[motive134]

Ok so Sunday I checked the voltage on each battery and the readings were fine 12.6 volts. So I decided to run a 14 gauge ground wire (this is what perfect pass customer service recommended) from the pp power directly to the negative battery terminal. Everything has been working fine for the past two days so hopefully this permanently fixes the problem. Thanks for the help I really appreciate it!

[IDBoating]

Still worth figuring out the reason you're dropping so much voltage. Electronics in your boat expect to see normal voltage, not several volts too low. It's obvious the current load from the pumps is causing a drop across some unexpectedly high resistance somewhere (basic Ohm's Law). Running a dedicated ground wire solved it for your PP system, which essentially proves it's a problem in the grounding somewhere. I agree with the earlier respondent that it's likely a loose or corroded ground cable, lug, or terminal. You've moved PP off of that ground but whatever else depends upon it (which clearly includes the pumps) still has the problem. As just one good reason to fix it, your ballast will fill and drain faster due to the higher voltage and resulting higher current through the ballast pump motors. Fix it now, while it's easier to find!

[motive134]

I haven't noticed the bags filling any slower than usual and the voltage gauge now reads around 12. Is it possible that when the perfect pass was installed they grounded it to the back of the voltage gauge causing it to fluctuate due to the bad ground? Perfect pass customer service said sometimes on installation people use the back of gauges to ground because it is easy but not a great place for a ground. Maybe I should track the ground wire from the pumps just to be sure they have a good connection? Thanks for the advice

[IDBoating]

We've been working at the factory of one of the major boat manufacturers to improve their fill/drain times and I can assure you, voltage (really, current) matters a lot. Pump current to volume curves are NOT linear and depending on the pump, especially near the top end, you lose more flow (as a percentage) than current reduction would suggest. In other words, losing 10% voltage (which results in roughly a 10% current drop too) can cause a loss of 20% of volume near the top end of the pump's performance curve.

It's up to you, but if it were my boat I would track down and resolve the reason for the low voltage. Even if you don't care about ballast fill/drain times, the lost voltage is being converted to heat (I^2R) somewhere in your boat. That's not a good thing, and it's not going to get better by itself.

Just my $0.02.

[motive134]

Ok so you were right IDBoating Sunday we were out on the lake and noticed voltage dropping any time we hit the wake turning around. Started investigating under the dash and found a fuse that was essentially broken in two pieces and one that had a little corrosion on it. They were both from the fuse box coming from the ignition accessory I believe. Replaced them both and everything works perfect. No voltage drop, perfect pass works perfectly, and you were right about the pumps the ballast is filling MUCH quicker. Thanks for your help!

[IDBoating]

Happy to help, glad it's fixed!