Finally figured out power losses

[yolo]

Ever since I bought my 238cc I have been losing power when running multiple electrical components at the same time (ie: spreader lights dimming when wash-down pump comes on ect.). I can’t tell you how many times I pulled off the battery connections and cleaned them, pulled off the terminal connects on the breakers and switches and cleaned them ect. I could never figure out the reason and confusing me further I have a Alpine pdx4X100, running four Wet Sounds speakers, that is wired direct to the battery (isolated from all other systems) and would not cause any dimming, or other power loss to the boat systems, when I was pushing it. I always knew the batteries were good because I have two Optima BlueTop D31 batteries with the Pro Mariner ProSport 20 charger that is always plugged in at the dock. I could never figure this out.

Over the past three or four weeks I have been in the process of gutting my boat from the motor forward, prompted by a Verado electric power steering pump going bad because it was in the wet bilge, and redesigning it. About the middle of last week I FINALLY got the factory wiring harness out of the boat after hours of untangling and making sure I didn’t rip anything out that was intended to stay.

As many of you know, there is one main ground wire that runs from the battery to the switch/ breaker panel on the dash of our Sea Pros. In the process of removing the wiring harness, which is all type two copper wire mind you, I found that the ground wires for most of the electrical components, about three at a time, on the boat were spliced and piggy backed into the main ground. There was about three or four of these splices in the ground and some of the component grounds were even into and piggy backed for something else.

What I finally found, and the reason I was loosing power as described above, each time there was a splice in the harness ground I had about a foot of corrosion in the ground wire and then into the component wires (the harness runs from the console to the batter through the bilge so it was ALWAYS damp) causing tons of resistance. Also, many of the lights on the boat (court lights, spreader lights) had one wire running from the dash, to a point where the wire had to split and then split with a butt connecter and two wires shoved in the other side; corrosion and bad power distribution furthering the problem.

I have already started installing new wire (type three tinned and awg more than sufficient) and powering things up & I cannot tell you the night and day difference I am getting. So, to tie this post off, I thought I would share I case some of you are experiencing similar problems and when I finish the job i am going to post a nice blog with the new design.

[Simple Man]

Great info yolo. Please incorporate these findings into your final report. I think that report will be worthy of a sticky.
So if I understand what you are saying, the grounding wiring is where most of your problem was. Had you rerun that, might the OEM positive wiring system been ok for further service?

[yolo]

Thanks Simple Man.

Yes, the ground that runs from the battery, through the wiring harness, then to the dash switch panel was my main problem. Of course there were other factors like the connections on the breakers and switches being a bit corroded (from years of saltwater air exposure) and a single wire running from the power source to certain point then split with a butt connector to run 2 or more lights from the one switch, among other things, but the corrosion on the ground was the big culprit.

Technically speaking, yes, if I ran a new a new main ground I could keep the existing OEM harness in there.

That being said there are two things that lead my decision to pull the entire harness which are BUTs to my last above statement (one that was objective and lead my decision and one that made me very happy about my decision):

1. The first but and the objective part: The wire is seriously outdated.
a. All the wire on the Sea Pro was type two copper. I wanted to change it over to type three tinned copper
marine grade wire.
b. The tinned copper deals with corrosion much better than the regular copper, has more strands to deal with
vibrations and carries heavier insulation.
c. ABYC recently changed the color of ground wire to yellow, and I wanted to make this update as a potential
sale point should I ever let the boat go .
2. This is the big BUT: If you run a new ground wire then you will have to run new grounds to all of the components that are piggy backed in line to the main ground. Ill try to paint this picture a bit more, I hope I don’t confuse everyone.
a. Think about a wire in a long straight line like this ------------------------------.
b. Effectively what the manufacturer did was open then insulation at certain points in the wire like this
---------- ----------- --------- (the blank spaces here represent breaks in the insulation only not
the actual copper wire, the copper runs the full length with no cut).
c. Then they took the ground wires from components, like wash-down pumps, bilge pumps and live well pumps,
then crimped and shrink wrapped the end of the component ground in line to the main ground two or three
components at a time, kind of like this -------<-------<-------<-------. The < symbols represent the component
ground wires that were crimped and shrink wrapped into the main ground which is represented again by the dotted
line.

So, why am I telling you all if this? The BUT part is if you replace the main ground then you will still have to re do all the grounds on the components that are crimped in line to the main ground which is about 40% of the job.

Then you also take into account the birds nest that may be in your boat. An example: the wire running my anchor light ran from the fixed light on top of the t-top, down the tubes of the t-top, through the console, under the deck, to the back of the bilge, then made a u-turn, back under the deck, into the console and finally to the NAV light switch; oh and it was spliced and butt connected about three times in this run. The why is something I would kill to know. This part was a rant and off topic from the original question but I am still baffled by that wire.

I will most certainly add all of this into the write up I post, I have saved all the old parts in case I forgot something and have to add something when writing. Actually I have been doing all of this work at the marina and catching the eye of all the guys down there. One of them is a writer for a magazine “Boating on the Hudson,” www.boatingonthehudson.com/, and is interested in adding my overhaul to a future issue, so it will be well written and comprehensive (or should be depending on how many beers I consume while writing)!

[freezerfiller]

That's a lot of work to be doing in the middle of the season, but it will be worth the peace of mind when you are done. Bravo!

[Simple Man]

Good explanation yolo. Basically, if you replace the ground that's half the work, it's gonna look like crap so you might as well do the job right, upgrade the wiring and make it look good. Good logic. Please share the final write up with us so that we can sticky it for posterity!

[nlaudy]

Yolo, it looks like we are seeing a lot of the same stuff. I found two different spots where I had 4 negative wires being crimped into one wire! Call me OCD but I can't stand seeing that. I am willing to waste the wire and let everything run to a negative bus bar and have each wire labeled so that in the event of issues it is a VERY QUICK troubleshooting process!

I am also seeing that they ran all the wires through a tube in the bilge area on the right side of the boat.  Not sure why they decided to put it on the bottom when there is a higher platform that the wires could stay totally dry unless you whole bilge got flooded.

[yolo]

Simple Man- Yes that’s exactly it and the new design makes the boat more functional and much easier to work on down the road if I have to change something or want to add something. Simply the new conduit I ran under the deck is easier to fish wires through.

Freezerfiller- Yes 100% defiantly something I did not want to do be doing in the summer. Between troubleshooting, research, design, teardown and assembly I lost just about the whole moth of July. This was something I was thinking about for the winter or spring when I could pull the boat inside my uncles shop and have everything at my side, with 24/7 light  & no weather restrictions, but hey working outside in the warm sun I cannot complain.

Think about it if you were painting a picture. I gutted the boat and had a brand new canvas to work with. I am able to place things exactly where I want them, and doing so in a linear fashion I was able to make it look good, maximize space and not have to redo things. If I was an artists (which I definitely am not!! Lol) and had to redo a painting it would be hard to match background colors or mix colors and I would have to blend into stuff that’s already there when I could probably paint the picture exactly the same but better with new colors and brushes ect. and would be way happier looking at it when done.

The job/overhaul was prompted by the power steering pump going bad and me moving the electric pump to the console from the bilge so it does not go bad from getting wet again; it is an electric pump in a case that is susceptible to moisture and water.

Effectively what you’ll see under your deck is a PVC pipe looking tube molded into the fiber glass near the chine that carries everything on the boat running from the bilge to the helm. The power steering hoses, wiring harness and a piece of conduit are run through there (on mine with the mercury set up) by the manufacturer (when I say conduit I mean bilge pump hose because that’s what they used, bad idea). Pulling the hoses that ran from the pump to the helm through this “pipe” just seemed logical to me to do it now, especially having to run the power line for the pump back into the bilge “that you cannot cut” according to mercury.

My point and reason for doing it now, I just rather design and install everything in one shot then do one thing now then take it apart again later, or work around it when finishing later. As you said the piece of mind, I already feel so much better with things how they are, where they are and how electrical components are running better.

Doing this also cleans up my bilge, an example would be the bilge pump. Because of where the power steering pump was located the manufacture could not put the bilge pump at the lowest point of the boat so there was always water an mold buildup down there, always a problem for me. And then I don’t event want to get into what it looked like from a wiring standpoint, ill start having nightmares again lol.

Plus, my boat is in a slip at the marina. While I have been working on it a lot over the last month we are still able to hang out and enjoy it in the water (barbecues and the dock life on the weekend is a lot of fun where I am). I go down there early or after work, I work on it, girlfriend reads a book on the bow then people start coming down, I close up the shop (clean up my tools on the dock ) then we open the coolers and light the barbecues! I still get to enjoy it even thought I can’t untie it just yet.

Simple Man and Frezzerfiller- great responses guys! I love forums for this exact reason because our posts here are hopefully helping others learn a lot more about their boats! All of my reply are geared towards overall knowledge for people reading (I can tell from both of your past posts that you guys know most of the stuff I am saying). Its makes the water more fun, knowledgeable & safer for everyone.

[yolo]

nlaudy- apologies, I did not see your post before my last.

We should definitely be seeing a lot of similarities; I’m leading to assume they made one wiring harness and used them on all the boats. The one that I pulled out of mine looks like it could run the 27cc and walk around they used to make. And I

It’s a lot more than just OCD, its literal performance loss. The corrosion that builds up in those splices creates resistance and causes your electrical components to perform poorly. Keep in mind that the ground has the crimped components to it but also runs to the switch panel so all of the grounds running from the switch panel are, in the end, linked to the ground with the crimp splice that is most likely corroded at this point.

I’m doing something similar in terms of the bus, but I’m just installing a blue sea 8 pole breaker because I have several things in my boat at this point that I need switches for and want to be able to distribute them a bit better than I have now. Same concept though.

I touched on that molded in pipe in my last post, definitely a question mark for me as well. It also has a very extreme turn somewhere in there on mine that presented a bit of a challenge in getting things out. I took most of the lines out of there except two power steering hoses and ran new conduit under the deck into the console; I used the Carlon raceway and I love it and ran one inch lines that I am using for all different things. The are also much shorter than the ones that were previously in there.

[nlaudy]

Good stuff Yolo! Here is a pic of one of the items I found...

Attachments:

[yolo]

thats what it looks like. Only on mine everything is green from corrosion!

[yolo]

Was*

Ive got all marine type three wire in there now