Rocker Switch

[jbing81]

Hey fellas,
I was out yesterday and went to switch on my livewell and nothing happened. The light on the rocker didn't come on either. I checked the pump to see if it was humming incase it was clogged and also the connection at the pump but it wasn't doing anything and everything was connected. Checked the breaker on the switch and it wasnt popped. The switch next to the livewell is an unused wash down rocker, when that switch is turned on the light on it illuminates. So I quickly swapped the two wires for the livewell thinking the livewell switch might be bad, however the problem followed the wiring to the wash down switch, no light & no pump. At this point I'm not sure what the issue could be so I'm asking if anyone out there may be able to lend some insight?

Thanks
Bing

 

[gm280]

jbing81, If I am reading this correctly, you had a good working switch and moved the old wires to the good switch and it did nothing as well, not even lighting the switch. So that tells me the wires leading up to the switch are your problem. So trace those wires back to the power source and see when the break is. You don't have any voltage getting to the switch. JMHO!

 

[jbing81]

Thanks, gm280! That's the conclusion I was beginning to come to as well. I rarely use the live well and remembered this morning that I ran a fish tape through the wire chase last fall for my NEMA network. I'd bet my bottom dollar either I severed the pump wire in doing do. I'm going to run a jumper from the switch to the pump and see what happens. Thanks again!

Bing

 

[mjf55]

Put the wires back to original, then just swap the 'output' wire ( wire from the switched side of the switch that goes to the pump) to the new working switch. If it still fails, then it is the switched side.

 

[mjf55]

Sorry, cannot edit posts on phone.
So, on the switch panel, aren't the power source wires just daisy chained from one fuse to next, with each fuse going to the hot side of the switch, or is this wired differently?

 

[jbing81]

They are daisy chained. I moved the wires over to a known working switch and the problem followed (still no pump & no illumination from the known working switch)

 

[gm280]

They are daisy chained. I moved the wires over to a known working switch and the problem followed (still no pump & no illumination from the known working switch)

That doesn't make sense unless your ground is missing. Reason why? Because the switch would illuminate if you had voltage and ground on the switch even with the pump not working. So you need to check the ground wires.

 

[jbing81]

It's setup very similar to this.

 

[mjf55]

Yup, I agree with GM, you should only have to move the brown wire to a new switch to check that circuit. Based on the position of the photo, looking at any 1 switch, the wiring looks to me to be:
1- Bottom RED wire with yellow insulation daisy chained is 12 volts to fuse/cb ( hot side ).
2- Next up, RED with blue insulation is the 12 volt protected by fuse/cb
3- Third from bottom, BROWN with blue insulation is the wire to your device to be powered
4- Fourth from the bottom, RED with blue insulation is the other side of # 2 (above)
5- Top wire, YELLOW, appears to be daisy chained and I am GUESSING is the ground for the light in the rocker switch.

So the light should light as long as there is power to the switch, the switch is on, and the ground on the switch ( Yellow?) is connected.

Thy this. Remove the #3 (Brown ) wire from the switch in question. Turn the switch on, doe it light?
Now just move wire # 3 from one switch to the another, and see if the pump works.

the top wire, YELLOW, all the way to thr right in the photo appears to have a blue insulator on it. whats up with that? why is it different?

Let us know....

 

[jbing81]

Thanks guys. I'll have a closer look at the ground over the next few days and report back with my findings

 

[jbing81]

Thanks for the help guys, I narrowed it down to a bad 15a breaker. I moved the pump over to the open switch and it worked just fine. Not sure why I couldn't get it going while out on the water, I may have actually still had the battery switch off after I moved the wire ( was a bit frustrated at the moment ). Either way it works just fine on the other switch, I filled both livewells a few times just to make sure there wasnt a fault in the wiring. This particular push in breaker didn't pop out hardly at all, then with the rubber nipple over it it was pretty easy to overlook.

With that said how is the rubber nipple / boot attached? Is it threaded on in place of a nut? I pulled a bit on the rubber to see if it would slide off but didn't have any luck.

This is the boot / nipple I'm referring to

 

[gm280]

Some times it is hard to tell when a circuit break pops. You can probably cycle it a few times and it will work again. Pull it out and then push it back in. If it snaps back, it is reset. If you really think it is suspect, replace it and happy boating.

 

[jbing81]

I wasnt able to get it to reset so I'll be replacing it, good thing is they're cheap locally. As for the rubber boot, do they unscrew from the breaker post?

 

[mjf55]

I THINK that the boot just stretches over the CB retaining nut. It might just screw out in 1 piece( boot and retaining nut )

 

[jbing81]

She's all squared away now. Thanks for all the help! For what it's worth I took apart the old breaker and the piece that allows the breaker to reset was broken. I picked up a few additional breakers while I was at the store today in the event something like this happens again.

 

[oldboat1]

Think overload -- maybe clogged inlet, overworking pump. I'm running down a similar issue with a bilge pump.

 

[jbing81]

That's a good point. This particular issue though was an honest failure of the plastic breaker