PhilPB
Guru
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2021
- Messages
- 767
- Location
- Palm Beach County
- Vessel Name
- Sun Dog
- Vessel Make
- Mainship 34
Is that the new or old pin/coupling?
Is that the new or old pin/coupling? What does the underside look like?
Today I was painfully reminded the need for controlling your boat while backing into slip, in the wind with an inoperable bow thruster.
Today we took the boat out. The thruster worked fine for me to maneuver the bow so the wife could easily remove the bow lines when leaving the slip, then it stopped working. The motor would run but either the prop is missing, or something else. No cracks or thinks when it did work. Time to come back to the slip and I quickly realized how dependent I was on the thruster. Took quite a while getting the boat backed into the slip (single screw) and now have a damaged bimini bow for the cockpit bimini.
The thruster is just over a year old, professionally installed. Bottom is cleaned regularly and the diver is going to dive and investigate the thruster in a couple days.
Today was a hardly gentle reminder that I need to have complete control of the boat without the use of a thruster. Needless to say , it was a quiet drive home afterwards.
I would want the correct charger, not 40 volts. But also upsizing the cables would be a good thing. With heavy current loads the larger the cable size the better. You will have less voltage drop and better voltage is always a good thing, just not 40 volts…
I would want the correct charger, not 40 volts. But also upsizing the cables would be a good thing. With heavy current loads the larger the cable size the better. You will have less voltage drop and better voltage is always a good thing, just not 40 volts…
Well since they messed up I would want them to put the correct charger and upgrade the wiring as a makeup since you spent a fair amount trying to fix their mistake.
Other screw up you see with thrusters is the controls are on a separate circuit from the dedicated battery for the motor. This is common for multiple brands. I have a dedicated battery a few feet from the bow thruster but both control units (fly and bridge) get their power from the house bank and are fused separately. So there’s wiring all the way from those units to flip solenoids and turn on/off the motor as well as control the direction of rotation. On the Lewmar units they can activate one or both thrusters (bow/stern) which is stupid. Can’t think of an occasion where you wouldn’t want both active. You push the activation button and there’s a sequence-bow and stern, bow only then stern only. PIA if you hit that button while docking and need to go through the sequence to get both running. Engineers at work. Add a totally unnecessary feature and get a paycheck . See that with MFDs all the time as well.
When they come to fix their screw-up they are also installing a radio remote control which eliminates a wired joystick. I need to find out from them of when they installed the system where the installed joystick power comes from. I think they did a direct run back to the thruster battery. Good thing to check though.
Radio remote sounds maybe useful, but I think I'd want to keep a wired remote in the system too...
-Chris
Having both a wired joystick and a wireless remote is the way to go. My wife will not go on the bow of our Formula to handle lines. So she does the stern line first and then gets the permanent bow line off the aft spring cleat and ties off the bow. Sometimes the bow will blow out far enough so she can’t reach the bow line. If I am in the stern or on the dock with the wireless remote I can run the bow thruster and move the bow back to the dock.
Well Dave, all I can say is if I am following your lines of thought and implementation, I must be doing something right!!
Think the reason mine aren’t on the same battery as the two (one for bow and one for stern) that powers the motors is when used there’s a voltage drop. Controls maybe sufficiently sensitive to voltage that would affect their function.