Force 125 instrument and light burned out

[Mark SF Bay]

Bayliner Capri: I posted the other day that I had lost power to my instruments. After checking all wiring and finding no problem I pulled the light bulbs from the guages. Every bulb was burn out! Also my fuel and volt guages are toast as well. I replaced the light bulbs. They all worked. So I put the boat in the water. At first I dove at low and medium speed, about 30 minutes. Everything was OK. Then I ran at high speed. Aprox. 30 seconds after appling full power to the engine my instrument lights flashed very bright twice then went out.

All the instruments light are burned out again.

My fish finder which is connected directly to the battery and was on too but it worked normaly and is fine.

What can cause a DC volage spike to the instrument panel?

 

[john from md]

Re: Force 125 instrument and light burned out

Chances are you have a rectifier and not a regulator on your engine. Hook up a voltmeter and monitor your voltage as you increase rpm. If it goes above 16 with a rectifier, you need to replace it. Many of us have replaced the rectifier with a Universal Regulator. The regulator dies away with voltage problems and cooked batteries that usually go along with rectifiers.

John

 

[Mark SF Bay]

Re: Force 125 instrument and light burned out

thank you for your reply
The rectifier was my first thought too. I replaced the rectifier and the 12v instrment lights for a second time but they burned out again.
I did find the problem.
The caused of complete failure to all 12 volt items on the instrment panel was the main circuit breaker thet feeds power to ignition swich and instrments.
When I first tested the circuit breaker with my ohm meter it showed 0.01 ohms of resistance but under an operating load the breaker was going into HIGH resitance causing a power spikes. I replaced the breaker with 10 amp fuse.
Problem solved.
Now I need to replace fuel and voltage gauge. I would like OEM gauges but I think that's a tall order.

By the way, The reason my fish finder did not burn up is because I connected it directly to the battery.