Control panel and relay panel not connecting

[Happysailor]

Hi all,

Another day another problem.. Today visited the boat (2014 Bavaria Cruiser 41) ashore and wanted to pump out bilge water with the electric pump. Connected the batteries, put the main switch on and the pump ran for a few seconds before the battery was drained. Connected to the shorelines to charge the batteries, which is now giving sufficient power.. BUT.. the switches on the switchboard are no longer triggering the relays on the board. I don’t have a drawing from this board, but I would expect a tiny blown fuse feeding the board.. I do have 12+ Volts at the relay board. Any help would be much appreciated in fault finding!

[tiger79]

Does the display on the switch board illuminate and show you battery voltages?

[elias]

Hi , if I understand well , and the bilge pump empty your batteries in seconds then your bank might be dead . I m not a technician but a dead battery will infinitely draw current from the rest or from the shore power charger. Why don’t you switch off everything and with a multimeter test the batteries for voltage separated from each other .

[Happysailor]

The lcd screen of the control panel illuminates. Currently due to empty watertank I have a low level alarm, but it will not scroll to the battery voltages.. does that give a clue?

[tiger79]

The lcd screen of the control panel illuminates. Currently due to empty watertank I have a low level alarm, but it will not scroll to the battery voltages.. does that give a clue?

I think the alarm status prevents scrolling.  However, if the display illuminates, you obviously have power to the panel.

Let the batteries charge fully, then try again with the bilge pump.  It may be that the bilge pump relay is faulty.  The relays are all more orless the same, so you could swap it with another one and see whether that works.

As an aside, I'm surprised you have any water in the bilge.  Where is it coming from?  I only have dust in the bilge, and the pumps have never been used!

[Happysailor]

Today I cleared the alarm and thus was able to scroll to battery power, status is 13,1 Volts. Exchanged the relay of the bilge pump with one other, unfortunately did not did the trick!

Any other suggestions? Seems quite weird to me..

Off topic about the bilge water, boat is ashore outside in the Baltic and quite humid. We took the boat over in October and expect some nasty leaks and condensation causing it. Another job for the summer!

[Happysailor]

Solved - Hi all, final update on the electrical issue I was having. Appeared to be a defective control board. Salt humid air found its way on the board around the fuses of the Spare relays. Very likely shortcircuited the board and thus complete board did not correspond with the button panel.

In case this happens to anyone with no new control board with relays at hand/ available on order, you can also make an emergency repair. Remove the relays and on the switching part (connections 30 and 87), fit an on/ off switch similar to traditional panels. Make sure they have sufficient amps, usual switchboard switches will work.