Electrical Leakage?

[jamestown]

Has anyone heard of any issues with electrical leakage draining batteries slowly? I installed an additional group 27 plus an battery, and a 100A alternator and smart charger, and the batteries seem to me to run down quicker than they should. With the boat on the hard for the winter, there is almost no drop in voltage at all, so I am wondering if there is some slow electrical leak when the boat is in the water. My zincs were almost totally gone when the boat was hauled, although that could be completely unrelated galvanic corrosion due to a large bronze Max Prop. Any ideas??

[panoramix]

Electrical leakage can occur everywhere in your system. The only way to solve this issue is by means of an amp meter.

Now with your boat on the hard and everything switched off, there should be zero amps going to or from the batteries. If this is true, the same should apply when the boat is in the water. If your ampmeter shows current flowing while everything is switched off you will have to follow each wire that is connected to your batteries, disconnect it and check if the amps go to zero. You should be able to reach a situation where the amps are zero.

It could be some scafed cable running alongside your engineframe or anything alike.

good luck!

[Zanshin]

This doesn't necessarily mean you have a "leak" but that you have a drain. Perhaps a device that bypasses your fuses / main switchboard but has a draw - i.e. a digital meter, or bilge pump, or fire alarm, etc. You would use the same method as panoramix stated to locate your current drain.