why can,t you jump start your outboard motor

[troy]

apart from the obvious reasons why is it not advised to use jumper leads on your outboard.
can it damage your motor.
i was told you can bugger your rectifer and black box and what about your gps.
troy

[anthony_love]

Honestly.....use "zap protected" jumper leads and you will be fine.

Back in the days before EFI four strokes, we used to jump start outboards with jumper leads directly to the starter motor! Saved lugging another battery into the boat.

[bungie]

Still trying to find a lake on a slope to try jump starting my boat ::)

[ba229]

why can't you jump start your outboard motor?

Tell us.

Why can't you? Are we mind readers?

[Big_Kev]

I tried to push start my boat once and I am still pushing.

[troy]

ba229 i was always lead to believe that if you used jumper leads you could bugger the rectifer and black box.
and mate you must be a mind reader to back those whingeing blues even if they did win by default.
troy

[ba229]

:)

[visarend]

As a newby to boating I hope you all would excuse me for also wanting to know if you can jumpstart a boat using your car battery. Surely if you do not cause any shorts connecting your car's 12V battery in parallell with your boat battery it shouldn't hurt the electronics :-/?

[Volvo]

Now dont luuuuuuffffff fella's but yelled fer help once with blat fatteries err flat batteries ::) and a mate came over and threw a rope over reckoning one could jump/tow start the thing ??? :-/..
Well what can i say ::), we had a great run there fer awhile bein towed about ;D..
Nup didnt work but we did start it with jumper leads n didnt do no harm but do hear it can do damage as previouse stated..
Cheers n keep this one a secret ey..

[troy]

Volvo i was told today that this causes electrical spikes which can damage your gps also..
troy

[Volvo]

GPS, Sounder, radio etc...So i'm told..

[NQCairns]

I have done it before on traditional 2 strokes and no problems must be well over 10 times on differing boats, mostly beore gps but not sounders etc dont know about these newfangled complex electronic engines reminds me of the 80s ford falcons and electronic dashes :o What a step forward that was :-X

[troy]

Anthony-love when i mean using jumper leads to start your outboard i mean from connected battery to spare battery .
cables going from positive to positive and negative to negative.
your way by going from your starter motor is different to what i meant and might be okay.
why i am so interested in this that in over 30 years of boating i have never seen anyone do this.
in fact i have seen dozens of people lob up at the ramp and go home because of a flat battery and i have never heard once anyone ask for jumper leads where if it is their car you hear them all the time.
troy

[blaze]

Hi Troy
what ever ya do
DONT
go positive to neg, that makes 24v
always pos to pos, neg to neg for 12v
unless ya want 2 x 6v to make 12
cheers
blaze

[troy]

hi blaze i made a mistake there i will correct it.
i was just meaning going from your boat battery direct to a spare battery -positive to positive negative to negative and not doing it by connecting to your starter motor.
thanks for tipping me off.
cheers
troy

[Mr_Bean]

As mentioned by others, voltage spikes and electronics don't mix.

Although the risk of it occuring are low, the affect is high (in cost).

Best way to prevent the spikes is with the "Zap - protected" leads as Anthony describes them.

As these are not always available, the next best thing is to turn on the car headlights, yes I know this uses power but it provides a buffer for absorbing the voltage spike.

If you go boat to boat then turn on NON-ELECTRONIC equipment, nav lights, spotlights etc and make sure ELECTRONIC equipment is off (radio, sounder, GPS etc).

- Darren

[tideline_two]

in the old days power pack's (electronic ignition) were very sensitive to electrical spikes. they are pretty bullet proof now . i've jumped boats quite a few different times in the past couple of years. never had a problem. nowoutboard motors don't put out a whole lot of extra juice and it will take a pretty good while to charge a dead battrie with one. if you have to jump your motor off i'd leave it running for the rest of the day.

[Pwoida]

I don't see how attaching battery leads from a dead battery to a charged battery is going to hurt anything. As long as the 'donor' battery is not hooked up to a running motor like some people do when jump starting a car, then their shouldn't be an issue. I may be wrong as I'm not an marine electrician, but it seems simple enough. I was jump started once by a VMR boat no probs.

[troy]

pwoida i know where you are coming from but i asked 2 mechanics from different dealerships over the weekend and both strongly advised against it.
so i do not think i will ever risk it as to many dollars at stake.
troy

[Cloud_9]

you can give your electrics a spike just by connecting the battery same as hookin up jumper battery.
there is a lot of wives tails out there.
be sensible and things well be fine.
Cloud 9

[noluck]

troy
if you see yellow ute near by your home or at your home just ask him , if i come by any chance i will show you how to jump start your boat with out any damage
cheers no_luck

[Burley_Boy]

Darren (Mr Bean) has some ideas that make sense.
Spikes will be caused by a surge in current and yes they will destroy electronics no problems at all but not large inductive loads such as motors or lights. The zap busters are primarily a capacitor accross the line that basically behave as a short circuit to the voltage spike and thus remove it. Nothing wrong with fitting some filtering closer to the electronics (the closer the better) I should do it because I get noise in the radio when the motor runs and this is just volage spikes on the power supply.
A typical condenser (capacitor) as used in cars should likely fix the issue and provide added security from spikes.

If I was concerned over jump starting I would disconnect one battery terminal for a little while, then hook up the "donor" battery so that I charged my own battery for a while, then reconnect and start.
If I wasn't as paranoid (and I'm not) I would just switch off electronics then hook up the second battery while his engine is off (lower voltage). He can then start his engine and your battery will then act as a big capacitor so there should be no spikes introduced. Your battery charges up and you start from your own battery. Like Blaze says its a parallel connection so +ve to +ve please, you won't get 24v if you do it the other way around (unless you disconnect and series connect the two...) but you will surely see fire and heat and sparks and stuff like that = bad bad bad.

Can't see that there are any differences between auto and marine situations unless marine electronics suppliers have even less filtering than your regular Holden.

[Oldyella]

You CAN jump start your outboard. It causes no problems and is addressed in all Outboard manuals. It will cause no damage.

[troy]

Rd805
so what you are saying is in the outboard motor manual that you can use jumper leads to start your motor if your battery is dead and by doing this nothing can be harmed.
i am not doubting you as i have not read the manual but i am confused as there is a fair bit of comment that goes against what you have said that the manual states.
like with cars they warn you about doing damage to the computer.
i still would not use them.
troy

[ba229]

Hands up if anyone here can name a person they know (1st hand not hear say) that has done damage to a car by jump starting.

I would be interested to know if it happens very much.

[troy]

ba i have heard of quite a few occasions with cars but as you said it could be all bull.
then the question is why are people pariond about doing this like turning on radios lights etc and also saying you can bugger the computer i do not know only saying what i have heard.
troy
go the maroons we are coming to get you .
ba can you nsw folks name a better world champion than we can.
troy

[blaze]

Tassie world champs troy
David Foster, Ricky Ponting, David Boon,
cheers
blaze

[Burley_Boy]

Now why the computer and sensitive electonics is not filter and zener protected is beyond me :-/ in both boat and car electronics. Its pretty pathetic if its made so poorly as to be susceptible to spikes from an external battery. I had a VL commodore that would regulary generate its own spikes taking its own computer out.. go figure!

[troy]

Blaze just afew queensland champs.
Rod Laver-Pat Rafter-Wally Lewis-Mat Hayden.
cheers
troy

[noluck]

Hands up if anyone here can name a person they know (1st hand not hear say) that has done damage to a car by jump starting.

I would be interested to know if it happens very much.
[smiley=book2.gif]

[Needmorerum]

Hey, I just happen to have a Rod Laver custom made rod. He was actually from our beautiful part of the world.
On the battery side of things. Most boats would have a battery isolater switch fitted, if not, then they should have, turn the switch off, connect your battery, and then turn the switch on, what harm can be done.
I wouldn't have any problems jump starting my boat in this manner. My leads don't have any spike compressors on them, and I've jump started heaps of new 4WD's after stereo's have been left running all morning and so forth, I haven't seen any problems at all. Mind you, with all the hype, I do turn the lights on, not sure if this helps or not.

Corry

[Oldyella]

Troy.
Firstly, make sure you keep your battery charged on a home charger after use. This way it will not likely go "Dead flat" on the water. If you must jump start it, use one of those portable ones from Supercheap that you keep charged and on-board. Anthony Love (Ex-fishnet) is a knowledgable dude and has agreed it can be done, but ideally, prevention is better than cure. I have read in the Mercury manual that you can either jump or pull start them in an emergency and there is no repair procedure to follow.