Capt. Rodbone
Senior Member
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2020
- Messages
- 177
- Location
- U.S.
- Vessel Name
- SV Stella Polaris MV Sea Turtle
- Vessel Make
- 1978 VanDine Gaff rigged schooner, 1978 Grand Banks Classic Trawler
It seemed in the first few hundred miles of our Loop trip I was reaching out to this forum almost on a daily basis for thoughts on issues I was having with which I had no experience or knowledge of how to handle. You came through in wonderful fashion. We have been blessed in that we have had many less issues over the last few thousand miles and have about 1500 to go. That has freed up time for me to do proactive things on the boat instead of reactive plus reply in situations where I do have some experience to other forum users asking questions. Like many of you, I feel an obligation to not just be the question asker but help out where I can by contributing. Having said that, however, I am back in a “need for advice category.” Yesterday afternoon, we were running our northern lights generator which we have done quite a bit over the last month. Not my intended topic here, but these new low tolerance ground fault pedestals we had issues with coming through Florida are also very prevalent on the Michigan coast on Lake Michigan. It seems the state of Michigan parks service, whose website many Municipal, and I think even individually owned marinas utilize for their booking services, put out a requirement two years ago, that in order to be a part of their system all pedestals must be replaced by 2024 season end. Being 2/3 through that three-year window most have complied. Since we are still tripping breakers and are going to complete the loop before we invest in the long-term solution, we have used the generator much more recently.
So back to the generator. Yesterday sometime mid afternoon and mid recharging and AC power use time, it stopped generating power. The generator continue to run and starts and runs fine now however I do the breaker on the panel and nothing shows juice. Here are a few questions and thoughts I’ll share.
1. Please confirm I am correct when saying the breaker on my AC panel will either be on or off and there is nothing on the backside of the panel where I can access that breaker I should check or do?
2. Early in our journey, we had multiple situations of the generator not even starting that ultimately were related to loose relay switches. For a period of time I was able to start it by forcing downward pressure on them while also starting the generator by hand below. That worked until we got the shipment of new relays and had them installed. Last night I noticed the breaker switch actually on the generator was very loose. Today I plan to test it with a multimeter in both on and off position. Am I correct in saying the leads should show power coming from that breaker when the switch is on and not when it is off? And if that occurs, does that mean even though the switch box itself is a little loose that is not my issue?
3. I doubt these could be related, but the timing really makes me suspicious and would like thoughts here too. I have a starboard side running light that is an operable. execute the fix I had to at 6 to 200 pounds wedge my way all the way up into Behind the pedestal at the flybridge. I joked that I may fix one wire and damage another handful given I was crawling around and bumping into things. It was during this exercise I believe that the yellow light went off on the main panel. I can’t imagine a reason, however, why wiring from a generator down in the engine room would be going all the way up to anything in the flybridge? Is this likely a correct assumption?
4. Mostly when we were having reoccurring issues related to the relay switches, I had more than one person say you probably should just replace the entire wiring harness. Is there anything about an entire wiring harness that could be causing problems with actual power making its way out from the generator? I’m not even sure what an entire wiring harness encompasses.
5. What else should I be checking?
Sent from my iPad
So back to the generator. Yesterday sometime mid afternoon and mid recharging and AC power use time, it stopped generating power. The generator continue to run and starts and runs fine now however I do the breaker on the panel and nothing shows juice. Here are a few questions and thoughts I’ll share.
1. Please confirm I am correct when saying the breaker on my AC panel will either be on or off and there is nothing on the backside of the panel where I can access that breaker I should check or do?
2. Early in our journey, we had multiple situations of the generator not even starting that ultimately were related to loose relay switches. For a period of time I was able to start it by forcing downward pressure on them while also starting the generator by hand below. That worked until we got the shipment of new relays and had them installed. Last night I noticed the breaker switch actually on the generator was very loose. Today I plan to test it with a multimeter in both on and off position. Am I correct in saying the leads should show power coming from that breaker when the switch is on and not when it is off? And if that occurs, does that mean even though the switch box itself is a little loose that is not my issue?
3. I doubt these could be related, but the timing really makes me suspicious and would like thoughts here too. I have a starboard side running light that is an operable. execute the fix I had to at 6 to 200 pounds wedge my way all the way up into Behind the pedestal at the flybridge. I joked that I may fix one wire and damage another handful given I was crawling around and bumping into things. It was during this exercise I believe that the yellow light went off on the main panel. I can’t imagine a reason, however, why wiring from a generator down in the engine room would be going all the way up to anything in the flybridge? Is this likely a correct assumption?
4. Mostly when we were having reoccurring issues related to the relay switches, I had more than one person say you probably should just replace the entire wiring harness. Is there anything about an entire wiring harness that could be causing problems with actual power making its way out from the generator? I’m not even sure what an entire wiring harness encompasses.
5. What else should I be checking?
Sent from my iPad