FYI flasher battery issue

[MichiganMan]

I hope this experience will help someone some day. I have an older Marcum lx-5 great unit. Took it out a few days ago, turned it on, and nothing happened. Dead.  Took it home and checked the battery, multi meter said 12.58 volts. I checked all the connections still nothing when turned on. As I said this has been a great flasher for probably 12 or 15 yrs without a problem. So it was well worth the cost to send in for repair. While looking for an appropriate  size box to ship it in I came across a spare battery. Hooked it up and away it went working like it was new. Rechecked the non working battery still said 12.58 volts. Tried it again, still didn't work. I have used the unit twice since and works great. Bottom line is a battery can check good with multi meter and not work on the flasher. Note : this is not a Vexlar vs Marcum post. Our family has and uses both, both are good units.

[hardwater diehard]

I hope this experience will help someone some day. I have an older Marcum lx-5 great unit. Took it out a few days ago, turned it on, and nothing happened. Dead.  Took it home and checked the battery, multi meter said 12.58 volts. I checked all the connections still nothing when turned on. As I said this has been a great flasher for probably 12 or 15 yrs without a problem. So it was well worth the cost to send in for repair. While looking for an appropriate  size box to ship it in I came across a spare battery. Hooked it up and away it went working like it was new. Rechecked the non working battery still said 12.58 volts. Tried it again, still didn't work. I have used the unit twice since and works great. Bottom line is a battery can check good with multi meter and not work on the flasher. Note : this is not a Vexlar vs Marcum post. Our family has and uses both, both are good units.

How old is the "dead" battery ?

[MichiganMan]

probably 4 or 5 yrs old.

[ice dawg]

You might hook the battery up to the flasher and test the voltage with the flasher turned on. The multimeter will probably show low voltage with the flasher running.

[regulator]

I've had regular "old used" marine starting batteries do this. They will read like proper voltage, but the available amps will be non-existent.

[DR.SPECKLER]

Yeah I've had batteries test out at 12v then crap out under load.probably dead cells.they even charge fully but fail under a load.

[gf hardwater guy]

Ice Dawg,

Great suggestion. I hadn't thought about turning on of these darn things on and then testing the battery with a load on the unit. Surely going to give a person a lot better picture of the batteries actual health.

[Kevin23]

Even if it is bad, if its showing 12.5V it will turn on the marcum and run for a minute or two as the voltage drops to below 9.5V. Doesn't make sense that it would not turn on the unit at all and still shows 12.5V. If it was toasted and your unit killed it instantly, it would be showing below 10V after the first attempt. It wouldn't float back to 12.5V without being on a charger.

[MichiganMan]

After reading comments my curiosity had me back testing the bad battery. It still shows about 12.5 volts with no load. hooking it up to flashers(tried both lx5 and  fl8)When turned on they never showed any sign they mite run, not even a beep or a flicker. With unit turned off with multi meter on battery it showed 12.5 v. Instantly when turning either unit on the voltage dropped to 2 Volts. Its still a mystery why, for sure the battery is crapped out. Thank you all who read and took the time to respond.
         Again the main reason for the post is perhaps someone will experience the same thing someday and this will help them trouble shoot their dead flasher or camera issue.

[michianafisherman]

Sounds like it was dropped. There are 6 cells in the gell battery and one is just touching a little.
It would be like setting your battery cable, for your car, on the battery post so it just made contact.
You would get a dome light but would not start until you tightened it up.
Sometimes you can tip the battery on end and bang it back into working again.
But I never trust hauling them out on the lake and expect to use them.