Windless - Powerless

It appears I may have overworked my windlass while on the hook yesterday. Powered up, everything was fine, began to recover and notices that my anchor was coming up with half of Bonavista Bay attached. Lowered back in the water, went astern and cleaned the muck off. Completed the evolution and just as the anchor came over the pulpit, it stopped. Reset on the panel, Checked inline fuse, but still no gig. Power light on the control panel is lit when selected. Any ideas of a way to test the motor wile in place?an



Thanks in advance for anyone who might have knowledge on that to share.

Zoomie

Could there be a thermal breaker that auto-resets when the motor cools? Any clicking at the windlass?

A DVM can help finding the break in current.

As FlyWright says odds are you have a klixon (inline self resetting thermal breaker). Did you try it again after a few minutes. Otherwise try switching the breaker off then back on to reset

I did let it cool, pushed reset on the panel...not a gig.
Checked the inline fuse, it was ok, replaced it anyway.
Light on the panel comes on when selected, which tells me it is between the switch and the motor. I am leaning to motor failure at this point. Boat was on the hard for the last boating season, so this is the first go in two years.

Thanks for your suggestions, greatly appreciated indeed!

Zoomie !

The high load of a windlass is controlled by a much lighter electrical load (and wire) to the solenoid. My bet's on a solenoid...especially if you're not hearing any clicking when you depress the button. Solenoids are often the weak link in a high current load like starters, windlasses and bow blowers.

We had a similar, albeit intermitent, problem last year. Turned out to be a bad connection at the solenoid. The heavy cables were fine, but one of the small trigger cables had a spade connector that was loose. Crimped it tighter with pliers and has been fine. I would have switched to a ring connector, but the solenoid isn't set up for it.