help me please

Rocketman

I am having a few electrical issues. my boat was in the slip and the shore power breaker tripped resulting in dead batteries. since then my horn and spreader lights do not work. no fuses are popped. any ideas. is there another area to check?

Babyboomer

Get a meter and start tracing voltage you may have an inline fuse or corrosion on a switch or terminal my 270 has an inline to the fridge and it's behind the battery selector switch box 

Lifes Good

check the switches that the shore power is turned on off by. it's the small white box that looks like an outlet 110 but has switchs inside.

Rocketman

Life's good. Thanks for the suggestions. I have tried those with no luck.

TikiHut2

RM, Breakers shouldn't just trip without a reason, that said, did you mean that a breaker tripped in the shore power pedestal on the dock, or on the panel in the boat? Sometimes corrosion in a breaker will cause a fault that can be rectified (temporarily) by operating the breaker/switch numerous times.

Did you get a meter and check for voltage at the breaker, switch and fixture like Boomer mentioned?

If your horn and spreader lights quit working after the incident it sounds like an odd coincidence and I'd bet that Boomers right about it being a corroded contact or switch failure. Either way, getting a tester on those switches and fixtures would be the 1st thing to check.

It might be relevant to post what year and model boat you have so it can be narrowed down by those with a similar boat. That's all I have. Good luck, Mike

Rocketman

Boat is 2008 rinker 330

frodo13056

@Rocketman - Tiki asked a pretty important question: which breaker tripped- the pedestal or the breaker panel? And as Tiki mentioned, breakers do not open for no reason. Given that you have an 08 330, you have 2 shore power connections - one for the A/C and the other for remaining 120v loads. Do you use 2 separate 30 amp cords or do you use a "Y" connector at the boat? A few years back, a friend with an older Sea Ray asked me to look at his boat because his panel breaker kept tripping for no apparent reason. So, I started off by looking at both ends of his 30 amp Marinco cord and at the female end, there were signs of arcing - so I then check the show power receptacle at the boat and it too showed signs of arcing. I keep a spare 30 amp cord at my slip, so I put my new cord in service on his boat, waited for a few hours and no mysterious breaker action happened. After seeing the amount of arcing damage to the female end of the cord and to the boat connector, he replaced his cord that day, and the following week, we replaced the boat receptacle and he did not have any issues after that. Most folks never bother to check shore power cord condition and I've also seen where quite a few boaters disconnect the power cord from the boat before shutting down boat loads and before killing the pedestal power breaker - and by doing this, every time that power cord is disconnected from the boat under load, arcing will occur and degradation occurs at the connection point. Proper way is to shutdown all 120v loads on the boat, open the shore power breaker on the boat panel, then kill the pedestal power breaker then disconnect the shore power cord from the boat. Also, with the Marinco twist to lock connectors, they slowly wear each time you connect / disconnect which eventually will leave an air gap on the female connector on the cord which in turn creates arcing which in turn can result in your boat catching fire if the pedestal or boat breakers do not open in time. I usually check the female end each time I disconnect shore power to take the boat out. I use a single 30 amp cord from the pedestal to a "Y" connector at the boat receptacles. Let us know what you find!