They work better with the wires attached...

When we went on the sea trial with the PO in August he pointed out the many electronics that did not work--like the depth gauges at both helms, knot-meter at the lower helm, GPS (and I quote "the GPS works, just the display doesn't work"?!?) and the autopilot (he was afraid for us to even*turn it on during the sea trial).*

Yesterday we finally got around to opening the middle overhead panel where the knot-meter and depth gauge are mounted above the lower helm station and lo and behold they both had numerous disconnected wires.* Once we plugged all the wires back in (they were very well labelled!) the depth and speed at both helms now work!* Whoo hoo!*

That gives us some hope for the GPS and autopilot!* The autopilot seems to work but an error comes up.* Now that we have the manuals back from the broker maybe one of these days we'll follow the troubleshooting for the error and see if we can get it fixed.* The boat is so easy to steer it hasn't been a priority!* We got the impression the PO had no idea how to use*the autopilot*and was deathly afraid of it.* Hopefully not because it has a history of, say, shortcircuiting and turning the boat 90 degrees with no warning... which would of course probably happen*as the high speed ferry is passing.*

The last time I took the boat out the temp gauge did not work.* I check the connections several times, still nothing.* The engine felt the right temp as it was warm enough I could put my hand on the heat exchanger but not keep it there, the raw water was flowing.* About ½ hour later still concerned about the gauge, for some reason I turned on the starter key, the gauge worked and the temp was right where it should be 180 degrees.* What happened is I started the engine down in the engine room and not the helm.* Dah!*


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On the cruise gen I added a bigger pulley which required moving realigning.The original base was SS and I did not want to drill mess with the SS so I used marine plywood. *When I when to engage the electric clutch nothing. *What the heck? *Took me several hours after checking/rechecking things that I noted there was not negative/ground since the base was now wood. *Dah! **Connected a negative wire to the gen set and WALLA, it worked. ***

This goes to show one should always start troubleshooting by checking the simple things first. Fuses and breakers, wires, etc.

Now that we've used the boat twice with the wires hooked up to the depth gauge we are wondering if the PO had disconnected the wires on purpose!* The depth gauge on the flybridge intermittently goes nuts and starts scanning between the different units of depth, buzzing an alarm the whole time!* * Gotta love this yachting stuff!* We'll do some more trouble shooting on it when we go on our Thanksgiving cruise.

Fotoman wrote:

This goes to show one should always start troubleshooting by checking the simple things first. Fuses and breakers, wires, etc.

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Yes I know this.
But do I always remember when things start going bonkers?
No not always. Duh.

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Pineapple Girl wrote:

Now that we've used the boat twice with the wires hooked up to the depth gauge we are wondering if the PO had disconnected the wires on purpose!* The depth gauge on the flybridge intermittently goes nuts and starts scanning between the different units of depth, buzzing an alarm the whole time!*

Gotta love this yachting stuff!* We'll do some more trouble shooting on it when we go on our Thanksgiving cruise.

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What you may just have there, before you go pulling wires again, is possibly a simple case of conflict between the sonar on the flybridge and the one down at the lower helm. Before you despair, try just turning the lower one off when you move upstairs.* If they are pinging on or close to the same frequency, that is what might happen.* If you want to avoid this while both are on, hopefully at least one will have a dual frequency option, so you could set one to work at say 50kHz, and the other at 200kHz, being the two most commonly used frequencies.* Some use 83/200 also.* I can run 3 together becaue one is 200, one is 193 and the other 50kHz.* Just a thought.

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Peter B wrote:Before you despair, try just turning the lower one off when you move upstairs.

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Good advice!* I had a similar problem and it turned out that the two transducers
were talking to one another. (transmitting on the same frequency.) My fix was to put
an "on/off" on my depth sounder and not use both sounders at the same time.


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SeaHorse II wrote:


Peter B wrote:Before you despair, try just turning the lower one off when you move upstairs.

Click to expand...

Good advice!* I had a similar problem and it turned out that the two transducers
were talking to one another. (transmitting on the same frequency.) My fix was to put
an "on/off" on my depth sounder and not use both sounders at the same time.



Hmm, from the way they are wired I THINK the one at the upper helm is just a repeater of the lower one, though I would swear I saw two transducers when the boat was out of the water.* When we pulled open the panel we reattached wires into the back of the lower depth and that made the upper depth start working.* I THINK one of the wires was labeled "upper display".** I will definitely do some more checking!*

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