Electrical Problems???

[Branden Bergeron]

While fishing a tournament on Sunday in 6 hours of continuous rain, I started having some weird electrical issues. Let me first state that I have fished in the hard rains before with this boat ( 2003 901) and have never had these issues.



Problem 1--After the first 2 hours of the tournament I was running down the lake and I turned on the bilge pump, everything ran fine. I got to my spot and when I looked at the bow depthfinder (Pinpoint 7420), it had shut off (I leave it on all day during a tournament). It would not turn on the rest of the day, I have never had any problems with it before.



Problem 2--About 3 out of 5 times in the last part of the day that I turned the bilge pump on (or the auto pump turned on) the GPS (LMS 332C) would turn off. The flasher turned off every time the pumps went on. I have had issues towards the end of the day with livewell pumps running all day that my GPS would turn off when I cranked the motor (200 Opti), but I always thought this was because the battery was a little drained and the Opti requires a large amount of cold cranking amps. As far as the flasher goes, that has had weird issues too. In temps below 80 degrees it would work flawlessly. When it was very hot out it would occasionally not turn off, I'd hold the power button and the flasher would freeze, but as soon as I let go, it would turn back on. I would end up just hitting the master power switch to turn it off.



Any help is greatly appreciated,

Branden Bergeron

 

[Tony Payne]

Check your voltage at the switch/fuse panel and battery while you turn things on/off.



If it's like mine (2001 911), you'll probably notice a drop/gain in voltage at the fuse panel when you turn things on/off, and the battery will remain constant (12v).



On mine, I noticed it while fishing at nite... I started leaving the "voltage meter" on my fish ifinder, and if I turned on the lights, or a pump, I would see the voltage drop from 11 on down with each item... turning an item off returned some of the voltage.



Fishfinders being sensitive, if the voltage drops below X, you will see what you describe.



My solution was to run new (10g) primary power and ground from the battery to the switch and panel. I left the current ground in place, but removed the old primary power.



This resolved my problems.. I now get 12v constant...

 

[Tony Payne]

Oh yeah,... It was Jim B. that led me to this discovery...



Gotta give credit where credit is due!

 

[Bryan McDonough]

Over time connections, wires and switches develop more resitance.



I did what sim suggested and wired my graphs direct to the battery with new wires.

 

[Lamar Gilbert]

Since the problems seem to be so wide spread.....I would suspect a problem in the negative wiring first since it is common to everything.

 

[Tony Payne]

BMCD... I rewired main power to everything... not just the finders... I figured it wasnt the distribution so much as the gauge/quality of main wire they used.



lamar... I suspect you are correct... they (Nitro, other boats as well?) seem to daisy chain the ground.. finding a fault would be hard/impossible. This is why I ran a new primary ground all the way up, and tied it into the existing... path of least resistance, right?



Main point is this, I wasnt able to resolve the readings without BOTH a new primary hot and ground.

 

[william Clark]

Just a little more to add.... above info is excellent.

Be sure to wire 332c directly to battery with fuse at the battery. Also to note if you ever try to jump that battery (which probably won't work with Opti) unhook the 332c off of the battery completely. Clark