[Rhodes22-list] Major Electrical Problems

Mon Jul 2 10:15:06 EDT 2012

Peter,
I'm no electrician, but I can do basic wiring.  

If you've got burned insulation (7.) you've got a short in something somewhere.  And you're batteries were being dragged down as you worked which indicates an ongoing power drain.  I'd suggest marking all the cables that go to your batteries so that you know which reconnects to which terminal and then isolating the batteries by removing all the cables.  Make sure you have marked which cable goes where as, while it appears that Stan followed basic coloring schemes, it's not consistent throughout. 

Now that the batteries are isolated, check the charge on both.  If they were previously connected together and had the same charge and they are different after you isolate them, the battery with the lower voltage is probably damaged.  When they are tied together they will balance and average together.

Now that the charger is isolated, check it.  First check the shore power.  Check the voltage between the hot and neutral sides and check the hot between ground and neutral to ground.  You should have 15vac (assuming a 115vac circuit) between the hot and neutral and the hot and ground and nothing between the neutral and ground.  I've had an experience at my house there the hot and neutral were OK but the ground was gone which can cause havoc.  If you have anything other than this the wiring to your shore power may be damaged.

If the shore power connection is OK you can move on to the charger.  It sounds like your existing one is toast so we'll skip that for now.  Using your portable one you can charge up each battery individually.  I suggest leaving them isolated until you finish tracking down the problems.  Once your batteries are charged check them periodically with your meter to see if they maintain charge.  Start reconnecting one device at a time and check to see if the device works and if not.  If the device does not work and if it sparks when you try to connect up the wires, there is probably a short it the device or it's wiring.  I'm assuming your boat is wired similarly to Chris's with a positive and a negative bus bar with the positive lead going to the circuit breaker panel and some devices wired directly to the bus bar. Those directly wired should have their own fuses in the wiring to the device (typically the radio and bilge pump).  

If you have solar panels, they will continue to produce a charge, so keep that in mind.  Do not short the leads coming from the solar panels or you might damage them.

If does sound like you got a surge of power somehow.  If you were not connected to shore power, I'm not sure where it came from.

The thicker cables will be from your battery to your charger.  The charger then connects to your shore power connection.  

Good luck with this mess and let us know what you find. - rob

-----Original Message-----
From: rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org [mailto:rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org] On Behalf Of peter klappert
Sent: Sunday, July 01, 2012 2:17 AM
To: The Rhodes 22
Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Major Electrical Problems

	I hope everyone is having a great time sailing this weekend–it’s beautiful here in Apollo Beach. I hope you’re NOT reading the list, or only reading it instead of counting sheep.  

	Aeolia has MAJOR ELECTRICAL PROBLEMS and I’m afraid I’m going to need some help to solve them.

Here’s the current mess:

1.The stern light is blown.

2. The circuit breaker panel lights up but the LED for the “Instruments” breaker has blown   We replaced it with the “Running Lights” LED (since the blown stern light was tripping that breaker anyhow) and “Instruments” now lights.  

3. The Xantrex voltage meter is completely gone; the fuses in the wires from it to the batteries are ok.

4.  The fuse to the Garmin chart plotter is blown but the line itself has power. The Garmin was not onboard when all this damage happened. I don’t have the required 3-amp fuse at hand but when I get one I expect the Garmin to work.

5. There’s no power to the VHF–no power at the fuse. The fuse itself is ok.

6. The Sony CD/Radio (which is not powered through the breaker panel) receives power but will not turn on. We found no fuse and none is mentioned in the owners manual.

7. The LED lights on the ProMariner ProSport battery charger come on but the charger doesn’t charge the batteries. We couldn’t determine how the 2 cables from the charger run to the batteries, but we sort of assume the fatter wires/cables attached to the port side battery (red to +, white to -) are from the charger. In that case, the outer covering of the cable from the charger has been stripped, starting somewhere out of sight behind the companionway step. Why? Another possibility:  the cable from the charger has been joined to these somewhere out of sight behind the companionway step.
         (I just realized we neglected to disconnect the batteries and check those fatter wires/cables for power.) 

8. The charge on the batteries kept going down while we worked. The port side battery went from 12.03 to 11.92 & the battery before the V-berth had a similar drop. The only intentional drains on power were (1) the breaker panel (2) the fan in the cabin. (It was very hot today.) We didn’t try to run–and I forgot to check–the fan in the V-berth. 

9. Around 5 PM, as we were quitting, I hooked up a portable charger to the port battery. When I check about 6.5-7 hours later, both batteries registered just under 13 volts.

(I’ve only got an analog multimeter; it’s clear I need digital.)

Solving this mess is made much more difficult by (1) not having a wiring diagram for Aeolia and (2) the absence of ID tags on almost all wiring. (The only tags are ones that came from various manufacturers–Xantrex, Sony, maybe Standard Horizon.) 

Did anyone get a wiring diagram from General Boats when they bought their boats?
If so and if possible, please scan it and post it as an attachment–or send directly to me at peterklappert at comcast.net.  Thanks! 

It seems certain I’ll need to hire a marine electrician; a wiring diagram will save him time and me $$$. I’m already facing a lot of expense to replace electronics on board.

This message is a version of one I’m sending to Stan both by eeee-mail and fax. (The last time I tried to call the factory number I got a fax tone, and it’s still there, so I'll try a fax.) 

	Additional History: 

        A few weeks back we had a strong storm--heavy rain and winds gusting to over 50 mph. I had to power outage here at the house. Some time later I noticed that the VHF aerial atop the mast--the staff part of it--was gone. It was in the cockpit.

	A week or two before Debby we had a power surge that knocked out my FiOS. There was no other sign of a surge at my house. & there were no power interruptions during Debby--or maybe one very brief one.

       I'm reporting this because there is no sign of a lightning strike, on Aeolia or on land.

	Aeolia has not been connected to shore power except the two times I mention below. 

	I didn’t take the cover off the boat immediately when I got here, and when I did it was mainly to see if everything was dry in the cabin. Couldn’t have been dryer. 

	At that time the Xantrex volt meter indicated the batteries were low, so I ran shore power  to the outlet outside cabin. (Apparently the clear panels in the boat cover did interfere with the solar panels) I think I got distracted and left the shore power connected for 24 hours or more. Unless there was a power surge, I don’t think that would have been detrimental: shorepower goes to an onboard Prosport20 Marine Battery Charger. When I disconnected shorepower, the meter said the batteries were charged.

	[Maybe the worst part of all this narrative is having to make the following admission: I haven’t used Aeolia at all since I’ve been back to FL, It’s a long, boring story--a series of long boring stories.]

	I went out yesterday to prepare for a sail today and found the voltage meter was completely dark (unpowered). Ran shorepower to the boat but it made no difference.
	I then discovered that all the lights and outlets on my dock were shorted out. The power to the lift motors, which doesn’t have a GFI, was fine.
	A friend & I identified the source of the short and disconnected that wiring. All the other dock lights and all outlets now have power.

	Nonetheless,  when I ran shorepower to Aeolia it made no difference. The voltage meter was still dark. We spent the afternoon trying to figure out what was wrong. Steve’s a longtime boat owner and a home improvement contractor savvy about electricity issues. (I’m ignorant but trying to learn.)

	That’s when we discovered the various failures at the start of this long message.  I apologize for its length!

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