Alarm beeping with ign. off and key out.

[luke87]

Hi there.
I am new to these boards, but my family has had a 99 epic 22 since it was new.
It obviously is not new anymore...
Put it in yesterday, and despite the storage place having put a new battery in 2 weeks ago, it was dead.
So I bought another new battery.
Randomly, the alarm would go off, fairly quietly, not as loud as when starting it.
This would happen with the ignition in the off position, and with the key out.
The red light stays on, and you can occasionally hear that buzzing sound like when you turn the key on...
Possibly a primer of some kind?
Played with the heater switch, and it shut up.
(note: the heater does not work, the switch is loose and sloppy)
Went out on the lake, it was kind of running crappy, due to old gas i suspect, but it ran, and there were no alarms or anything.
(put 1/2 tank of new gas in and that helped a bit)
We stopped for some dinner, and once i shut the boat off, the alarm started in again.
I pulled the fuse for the heater, for the shower we don't have.
Tried disconnecting the depth gauge...
Jiggled wires, etc.
Finally disconnected the battery.
I am now at a loss.

Does anyone have any suggestions?
Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Luke

[luke87]

nobody has any ideas?
an update...
the speedo gauges are jumping up and down by a couple of miles an hour...
the buzzing sound i was hearing was the dashboard firing up.
again, this is all with the ignition turned off.
i played with the depth finder, and disconnecting it temporarily made the beeping go away.
but it came back pretty quickly, and the beeping is actually faster now.
nothing seems to affect it.
getting bummed.

anyone?
anyone?
bueller?
bueller?

[wakejunky]

sounds like you are getting the low battery alarm. mine did it couple months ago. weird low pitch beep. New battery took care of it.  Is the battery the correct size? your loose, sloppy heater switch might be the culprit, slow draw on the battery. what voltage do you have at the battery while running? possible alternator? maybe loose or corroded battery terminals. check the terminals at the perko switch for corrosion also. Ignition switches on these boats have been known to cause some issues.

[luke87]

brand new battery, twice in the last 2 weeks.
checked and cleaned the terminals.
they're pretty high pitched beeps, so maybe it's different?

[wakejunky]

The only alarm that goes off with out the key in is the battery alarm. Is your bilge pump maybe stuck on? early model epics had incorrectly wired bilge pumps. I'm assuming you have to jump start it every time. check for a draw on the battery. they can be hard to find. I hope you have an amp meter. eliminate one circuit at a time until there is no draw. WHat are your voltage readings?

[luke87]

hm.
i highly doubt it is the battery.
i put it in yesterday, and disconnected it overnight.
turns over and starts just fine.
like i said, the speedometers are jumping around, and making a buzzing noise.
i suspect a short, but cannot find anything.
i do have a electric meter, but have not pulled it out yet.
i guess i'm not really sure how to check all that.

[sailtl]

Sounds to me that voltage is getting around the ignition switch. Make sure the bilge pump is not staying on and that your alternator is OK and charging the battery properly. Make sure your grounds are good at the battery and at the rear of the motor on the port side where they all converge. There is corrosion or a faulty switch causing the problem.

[kirk_tx]

Do a search on running a new ground up to the dash.
That can cause erratic gauge readouts.  May have something to do with your buzzing as well.

Couldn't hurt.

[breakawaydaze]

I think you might have something with that floppy heater switch.  Epic computers do not like any sort of unstable electrical current.  I think I read somewhere that if you jump start your battery/boat with jumper cables, you would have a high potential of shorting out your computers.  If you got any sort of spiking electrical connections (ie: floppy switches) you are going to have bigger problems.  I would start out making sure all switches are in correct working order and I would clean every connection I could reach.

[2000epic]

Wow, I am having this exact problem!  My battery is a brand new Optima yellow top.  I am running a 6gauge dash ground (still get the low voltage alarm BTW)  my heater is in perfect working order.  If I turn the heater on, the alrm goes away.  I noticed the alarm is accompanied by the "drive temp" dummy light in the top center of the dash under the illuminated Epic badge.  I too am at a loss

[luke87]

i have it in the shop right now.
6 hours under that dash in 85 degree heat was enough for me.
let someone else deal with it.
i will let you all know what the deal is once i hear something.

[2000epic]

cool beans, thanks

[luke87]

it sounds like it was bad grounds, for the most part.
he had to clean up a lot of contacts...
also, the volt gauge is bad,
but that was not causing the alarm.
he's still going to run some more tests once the gauge is in.
i will update.

[cyclone]

The only screw wiring terminations under the dash are to the DECC, everything else is plug terminated, going through the big ckt breaker box on the back of the dash. You must have a new ground and hot running to the DECC box post terminals, where it feeds the breaker box. It is not likely that there is a lot of corrosion there, but if that's the case I'd take a hard look at every part of the boat as that is excessive corrosion.

The mechanic may be talking about the battery connections, ask him to clarify.

The boats have servo driven gauges that don't go bad very often. They are plugged into a serial link that connects all the gauges to the MMDC computer.