Wiring problem

[Zamble]

Ok, so we replaced our batteries with 3 DieHard Platinum PM1's. We had four in the system before.
Everything worked properly, with the old crap batteries. After we installed the 3 new, and 1 old "new" battery, had quite a few electrical problems. The blower no longer works, my anchor light will not come on, and my running lights will not turn off. I have a vhf and am/fm radio that worked before. On the panel they were on, there were only four individual components installed on that fuse panel. The other two work. It has romex going straight to the batteries. I bridged the batteries exactly as they were when I took them out. So the new ones are hooked identically as the old ones were.
Before the put the new batteries in, I replaced the keys switches on the flying bridge. Again I hooked the wires up as they were before.
We can't figure out what gives. We attached all the wires and cables and the blower would never come on.

Thanks.

 

[Zamble]

Re: Wiring problem

Anyone?

 

[pheasanthunter]

Re: Wiring problem

buy yourself a volt meter and start testing for voltage and tracing wires.

 

[Star]

Re: Wiring problem

You did say anyone, Ha Ha!
Old techy here. When people make changes on their boats they should make one change at a time testing all related systems beforew making the next change. Yes it is time consuming but necessary! I suspect two possibilities. The switch you replaced is not the same as the one you installed. One missed connection will stop you cold. The other thing could be battery terminal clamps can devlope a serious resistance and need to be cleaned before reconecting on a new or the older batteries. The volt meter will tell you what is happening but sometimes you can get voltages without any current to drive the device. Always check with the load applied! Good Luck!

 

[LippCJ7]

Re: Wiring problem

yeah the other posts are pretty accurate, your breaking a few rules for a new electrician. your location would be very helpful as well. Its doubtful that the batteries could cause this but its not unheard of.

So first things first....
Do you know how to use a DVM Digital Volt Meter?

Get your camera out and start taking pics of your setup and post them, we will go from there....

 

[Zamble]

Re: Wiring problem

Well the previous owner had the wiring all screwed up. Wrong colors. We figured out that after we figured all the fuses were blown on a secondary panel. But we still have a problem with the blowers. The switch for it is on the main panel. From there the wire goes on the port side to the transome and goes to the starboard blower. The port and starboard blower are connected by romex, then together connected to the switched wire.
We checked the wire at the blowers and when the swich is on, it reads 10ish volts. I then ran a wire straight from the battery to the blower and it comes on. We didnt make any changes to the switch or the boats main wire harness. It ran fine about 4 or 5 days ago, with no problems at all.
I have been told to run new wire from the fans to the switch. Thats a lot of wire to pull.

Any suggestons?

 

[LippCJ7]

Re: Wiring problem

Who ever told you to replace the wire is correct, romex is solid conductor and there fore not good for a high vibration environment so absolutely replace ALL of it, every wire in your boat should be stranded conductor. get that done and we will see where your at....

 

[beagleboy]

Re: Wiring problem

As soon as I saw the word ROMEX I got concerned.

 

[LippCJ7]

Re: Wiring problem

ok now that I have gotten some sleep I will finish my post.
Absolutely right Beagle. Zamble think about it this way have you ever taken a piece of solid copper wire and bent it back and forth until it breaks? that's why you don't use it in a boat, the fact that you have 10ish volts at the blower is a great indication that this exact example has happened to the blower wiring, now because of the break in the wire you have electrical arcing which causes heat and resistance, you can also safely assume that because of the environment(humidity and water) you also have a good amount of corrosion in that break as well. The good part about this is that it has only affected the blower, hopefully that's the only romex in the boat.

You say that's alot of wire and I had to laugh its not so bad bud you don't have an aircraft carrier do you?


you didn't buy that British aircraft carrier Arc Royal did you?

 

[Zamble]

Re: Wiring problem

Its not huge, or really big by most peoples' standards. Its 28 ft., 10 ft. beam Fiberform, with a flying bridge. Its a lot of wire to pull in the tight areas when you a not a small agile person. When I pull the wire, I do it right, not mickey mouse and sloppy. I just don't look forward trying to squeeze 6', 245 me into the no room engine compartment.
The former owner was an electrican, hence the romex.

 

[jhebert]

Re: Wiring problem

ROMEX is a brand name of wire. The term is in general use to mean any two or three conductor wire with a typically flat or oval shaped non-metallic sheath or outer insulation that meets building code requirements for household electrical wiring, also called non-metallic or NM. I have some two-conductor cable with a non-metallic sheath which contains marine grade stranded insulated conductors. It looks much like standard ROMEX cable. I would not say that ROMEX always means the insulated wire must have a solid conductor.

I seems unlikely that the source of problem in the electrical distribution could be a new battery which was a direct replacement for the existing battery. If there were a loss of electrical power distribution only in certain branch circuits, the problem most likely is in the secondary power distribution wiring to that branch circuit, not in the battery itself. I cannot imagine a situation in which a battery malfunction could affect power distribution in only one branch circuit which was being fed by the battery while maintaining power in other branch circuits. That is not the way electrical power distribution works.

 

[NYBo]

Re: Wiring problem

ROMEX is a brand name of wire. The term is in general use to mean any two or three conductor wire with a typically flat or oval shaped non-metallic sheath or outer insulation that meets building code requirements for household electrical wiring, also called non-metallic or NM. I have some two-conductor cable with a non-metallic sheath which contains marine grade stranded insulated conductors. It looks much like standard ROMEX cable. I would not say that ROMEX always means the insulated wire must have a solid conductor.

It would be more correct to say not everything the looks like Romex is really Romex.

 

[LippCJ7]

Re: Wiring problem

Its not huge, or really big by most peoples' standards. Its 28 ft., 10 ft. beam Fiberform, with a flying bridge. Its a lot of wire to pull in the tight areas when you a not a small agile person. When I pull the wire, I do it right, not mickey mouse and sloppy. I just don't look forward trying to squeeze 6', 245 me into the no room engine compartment.
The former owner was an electrican, hence the romex.

you could use the Romex to pull in the new wire....I'm sure you already thought of that though....

 

[Zamble]

Re: Wiring problem

Ok...

The romex was flat sheathed, but when I got in there and looked at it, it was marine grade. It is braided.

Found out this after I wormed my big butt in there. So there is one blower on the port, two on the starboard. The romex looking wire runs between the port and starboard blowers. The prior owner extended the original two wires coming to the from the switch, with a barrel connector and an additional about 4 inch piece of wire for the hot and ground. Then he took the 3 wires from the fans (3 hot and 3 ground from 3 fans), used 2 twist caps to attach the 3 hots and 3 grounds.
We couldn't find any reason why they weren't working, they had power going to them. But when I was testing using the block for my meter ground. So I decided to test the fan ground and the fan hot wires. With the block for a ground I got 12.5, when I used the blower ground wire, I got .12.
I gave up for the day and was just moving something on the top I noticed it sparked. You know where the wire harness plugs bolts into the intake, it was not bolted down. So I bolted it down, now the blowers will not turn off, lol.
Go figure.

If I can get by this summer, I plan on replacing both of the engines wire harnesses.

Also, I have a problem with my running/ anchor lights. I thought I needed a new breaker bar, the old ones' connections was corroded. The problem was, they would not turn off. When I turn on the running light, the starboard goes dim, and the same with the switch on all postions. The anchor lights are nice and bright. But both running lights apparently got issues. The bulbs are new, on all of them. I cleaned off all the contacts on the bulb mounts.

Any thoughts on that?

Thanks

 

[LippCJ7]

Re: Wiring problem

yeah, first off use the battery negative post not the engine block to test from, just as a way to train you I would like for you to put your DVM in Ohms, attach the negative wire of your DVM to the negative POST of the battery via alligator clip or something of the type that will assure you of a very good connection. Now I want you to start probing other known grounds on your boat note they SHOULD all be ZERO OHMS, the motor is easily the single biggest voltage draw on your boat and also the one place that people always make the mistake of ASSUMING has a good ground to it so checking the resistance to the motor is a good place to start, any resistance higher then a single ohm is voltage drop start fixing the grounds then go after the other issues using this technique. your in a bad place now and your about to see why so many freak out on electrical problems they can be fun but once you begin to fix the bigger issues like your grounds and your supply then the problems will become much smaller. Eliminate multiple connections that are not weather sealed properly or any connection that is not sealed with heat shrinkable tubing with heat activated glue, you can use crimp connectors that already have heat shrink and heat activated glue. using the DVM you can find all of your issues down to bad butt splices by probing the connection and checking resistance across the connection it should always be zero ohms. Resistance adds up so 3 bad connections on one branch with 2 ohms resistance become 6 ohms resistance to the system and a pretty good voltage drop on the circuit.

I have talked to much but after this you will be a pretty good electrician for your boat, if you were in Colorado I would tell you to come over and bring some Corona so I could show you why I have no hair left........redneck electricians drive me nuts!!

 

[NYBo]

Re: Wiring problem

Do NOT use wire nuts in a boat! Replace them with proper connectors.

 

[beagleboy]

Re: Wiring problem

Its not huge, or really big by most peoples' standards. Its 28 ft., 10 ft. beam Fiberform, with a flying bridge. Its a lot of wire to pull in the tight areas when you a not a small agile person. When I pull the wire, I do it right, not mickey mouse and sloppy. I just don't look forward trying to squeeze 6', 245 me into the no room engine compartment.
The former owner was an electrican, hence the romex.

Yeah, Previous owner was an electrcian doing 110,220 etc and knows "****" about 12 v DC and marine applications. Like a car mechanic working on marine. "Why the sheilds around the altenator", oh, no air filter but this funny "brillo pad" on the carb. SPARK IN THE BILGE is this a problem? Lets do it the car way and save money.

 

[Zamble]

Re: Wiring problem

Ok. Tomorrow, I will try to replace all the ground connections tomorrow. How do I test the ballast resistor? The engine fires up first shot, runs very well. But the br just looks old. I don't want to replace what does not need replacing. I have spent a small fortune in the past few months.. I will replace the twist caps, but I don't look forward to it. Its was a ***** just reaching around to remove and put them back on.

Another question. I have 2 wires coming from my distributor, red and black. The red appears to go to the br. It looks like the wire seperated from the connector on the br. It goes to nothing, as of right now. But remember the engine runs very well and strong right now.

On top of if its not one thing its another. My father in law informs me he want me to replace the swim step. I have no clue where to find a replacement for whats on there now.

 

[Zamble]

Re: Wiring problem

Ok, so hours later, still no resolution. I replaced all the wire connectors and splice connectors. Cleaned all the grounds and the connections. I took the fuse out of the dash and reconnected the battery, the blowers still ran. I unplugged the starboard side of the harness, the blowers still ran. I unplugged the port side of the harness and the blowers stopped. I then bridged a ground and a hot wire and started checking the connections to find out which wire was energizing the blowers. It was the heavy gauge red wire connecting to the starter solenoid.
And there is where I left off.
The only change to the system I made, was I changed the key switches on the flying bridge. I know I put the wires back where they were on the old switches, but.....

 

[LippCJ7]

Re: Wiring problem

nice! the only thing to do now is get your Volt meter out and start probing for voltage, somewhere something is either wired incorrectly or isn't the same as it was, you replaced the ignition switch so could be that the new switch is slightly different then the old one, that would be a good place to start