One Thing Follows Another

[hmason]

It fascinates me that something can work perfectly one day and fail to work the next.

On a Sunday we used the boat for a 4 hour cruise. We took her out again on Monday and the Glendinning synchronizer which worked flawlessly on Sunday would not engage. Not a calamity and decided I would get to it during the week. I spent a couple of hours fooling with it and traced it to a failed solenoid since I was getting power to the solenoid but it just sat there silently. BTW, there is a significant amount of grease in that unit--lifetime lubrication for sure. Called Glendinning and they shipped out a solenoid ($200) that same day.

That evening, the LED interior lights went dark (we live aboard). Found that one of our 8D house/start batteries had given up the ghost. Replaced the battery and to my great joy, the synchronizer began to work perfectly. Although it was getting power, I suspect the voltage dropped as the solenoid began to draw current.

I'm pleased to say that Glendinning was good enough to intercept the new solenoid from UPS and refunded the $200. Good folks over there. And, a new lesson learned.

Howard

 

[psneeld]

Glendenning has had a good rep for as long as I have known/dealt with them (15 years now)...

 

[Peter B]

Totally agree. One day the depth sounder function in my GPS/Sonar was working perfectly - next minute it started winking, (something it has done before), but this time all the tricks to get it going properly again have failed. Fortunately I have triple redundancy in sonars. And yes, I did 'soft' and 'hard' re-sets etc.

Then there is the remote control to my trusty(i.e. 25 yr old) Yamaha DSP 100 sound surround module, which worked perfectly all these years, (often neglected for long periods), worked fine one day, then not the next, and nothing will revive that either. Fortunately it has manual over-ride, as there is no way I'll get a replacement now, but it's just pain having to get up to it to adjust each time. (Yes, of course I've replaced the battery, cleaned contacts, etc, etc.)
Up to now have not been motivated to try some of the rather drastic remote rejuvenation tricks one finds with Google…anyone else..?

 

[BruceK]

People can be amazed it rains in suburb A but not the adjoining suburb B. Rain has to stop and start somewhere. And boat parts (maybe not anchors) have to break sometime. Still, a PITA when it happens.

 

[stornoway7]

If you could predict when things(including us) will fail it would take the fun out of boating.
Often when replacing batteries on cars people later remark that the car seems to run smoother.I take credit wherever and whenever I can get it.