A problem I found with the windlass system on my 2002 B36 was that the wiring provided by Bavaria during construction was not all that it might be. In particular the thin cables used to send the up or down signals to the black relay located behind the main control panel were the problem. The signal cables used were contained within a grey plastic sheath holding The three signal cables plus if I remember correctly a fourth cable which served no purpose at the time. The problem was down to the cables not being of marine quality where ordinary copper wires were found to be covered in corrosion, and it was this corrosion that was blocking the signals from the up/down controller. Using tinned copper wire instead of ordinary copper wire prevents corrosion of the copper leading to poor conductivity. Before re-wiring I purchased a suitable length of three core "tinned copper wire" and loosely connected the controller over the deck to the relay behind the main switchboard, and this worked immediately. The problem next was to take the new tinned three core cable and hide it away internally behind the cupboards. Electricians have a tool which I don't know what it is called, but it consists of a number of thin plastic rods with screw together connectors at each end. Several of these were screwed together and this enabled me to feed the rod through behind the cupboards and between them and the boat hull, and to use them to pull the new cable through. I was not able to remove the old cable from where it passed through the chain locker bulkhead, so that cable was cut and a new watertight gland was fitted at a position where it could get to it. I didn't know the trick about how to remove the White plastic covered lining material from the chain locker bulkhead, so made a new hole where I'd managed to lift part of that lining. Once reconnected using the tinned copper wire the windlass worked perfectly and has continued to do so since mid 2010. If the up/down signal wires are not the problem, it may be that the relay needs to be changed, and as mentioned earlier, this is a black plastic covered device some 100mm x 75mm x 30mm (these are only approximate figures) which is located behind the main switchboard. They are readily available from any good chandlers that deals with Lofrans spares. Good luck.
