Marina induced battery switch failure...

[L-G Harvey]

As a proud owner of a 1983 30+ I have benefited greatly from the advice and information on this forum. I wanted to begin by thanking all contributors for helping me get to know my boat.

Corsario is in great shape for her age and we have been restoring her and having a great time sailing her. Indeed, we gave her new sails this year and her performance had been outstanding.

We had been away from the boat for a few weeks when the marina owner called us and said he thought she was taking on water. So we authorized him to enter the boat and he apparently pumped some water out of the bilge. The was no evidence that there was enough to get over the floor boards and that the boat was ever in trouble. We just spend several days aboard her, took her out, motored and sailed for hours and she trook on no water at all.

Ultimately, he claimed the bilge pump did not work and that a wire was disconnected on it. Fair enough, but for some reason his empooyee also chose to take apart the DC electrical panel and left it that way, so we found it hanging on the wires when we got to the boat. In addition, the rotary battery switch mounted on the panel was broken. The switch has a circular, puck-like, red plastic housing and it has been cracked as if someone forced it. He claims it was broken when he removed the panel, but I know for a fact that the switch worked last time I was on the boat and I can't see how it would spontaneously break without someone fooling around with the panel. By the way it is clear that the panel was never the problem, at most it was a loose wire on the pump.

Aside from finding a new marina, my more immediate problem is dealing with the switch. It is mounted on the inside of the panel and seems to be glued to it. I might try heavy duty contact cement to fuse the plastic parts of the housing together again, but since the whole thing is under pressure from the mechanism within it I'm doubtful that will work. Ideally I'd like to replace the switch by something I could mount inside the panel again and preserve the stock look of the ericson panel, but I've found no such switch and no evidence here that anyone has done that. Does this mean I am condemned to mounting some ugly new rotary switch beside the panel ? Has anyone heard of a replacement part I could use? Has anybody made that change? I am assuming I won't have to change the whole panel.

Any help or advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance and sorry for the long post.


Louis

 

[sleather]

Seems a lot of marinas have been messing stuff up lately.
Anyway you can post a picture? Very helpfull to those w/o the exact model, although it "may" be common to many. Like you said it's doubtfull it can be glued because of the loads, but if you want to try using "Plastic Surgery"(similar to Super Glue) and perhaps a large SS hose clamp to hold it together, it's worth a try till you get a replacement.

 

[L-G Harvey]

Hey Steve,

Thanks for the hose clamp idea... I was wondering how to hold it together while I clamp it from the back to try and glue it.

We will be back to the boat on Sunday and I'll try it and take a few pics.

 

[chaco]

Replace the Switch !

Don't even try to fix this Battery Switch. Good way to burn your boat down.
The heat created from electrical resistance on a CRUMMY OLD switch can be a disaster. The 3-way Battery Switches are nothing but trouble
Replace it with a very simple (3) Switch Battery Panel. I made my own from (3) ON-OFF Battery Switches. One switch controls the Start Battery-One switch controls the House Batteries and One COMBINES them for a start emergency. This keeps your Start and House Battery Systems seperated and
leaves your Start Battery for what it was intended to do...START your engine ! An Automatic Charging Relay will keep your Start Battery charged.
All of this is explaned and available from www.bluesea.com :nerd:

Happy Electrical Systems

 

[Cory B]

Battery Switch

Louis,

We may be in a similar boat to you, so to speak. Our battery switch has noticeable play on "1", which results in varying voltage drops across the switch. I noticed this when I finally started to investigate why the engine had trouble sometimes starting on battery 1, but no problem on 2. I'm going to disassemble our switch to see if I can fix it, but I expect I'll need to buy another switch.

At this point I'd like to just do a quick swap and keep the stock look of the panel like you. I think this switch from Seadog might do the trick. I haven't seen it in person, but the measurements match up. I'm assuming theres a set screw to take the knob off so that the switch body can be mounted behind the panel.

Let us know if you've found any alternatives, or what you decided on doing.