Air condition issue

boatman37

So boat is a Crownline but it's a Cruisair unit. Has worked fine in years past. Yesterday put the boat in and hooked everything up and found AC wasn't working. Did some troubleshooting and the compressor comes on, fans come on but no pump. Purged all air out of system. Checked power at circuit board and have 120V coming in but checked the terminals out to the pump and no voltage. There are no resets anywhere that I can see and no breakers other than the main switch on my panel.

So leaning towards the board being bad? Read somewhere that you can connect the pump wires directly to the input wires since the pump should run anytime the air is running? Anyone confirm this? Haven't had any luck finding the exact board but there is also a small black square near the corner of the board with a black, a yellow, and a purple wire going to it. The diagram has TRIAC written on that part. Had read that this may be a type of relay and possibly replacing this could fix it?

Any help or suggestions? I have a bunch of pics if you want to see them.

Thanks!

PickleRick

While I cannot assist you with the board diagnostics I can verify that on both my mermaid and current (marine air maybe? From near Miami) will run with 110 directly to the water pump.  This his how I winterize my system as well as how I would purge the water from the system if I forgot to close the ball valve before putting on the trailer.  My pump came with 110 outlet plug.  I'll purge the system without risk of overheating the compressor.  While I've never ran it like this continually I did click the AC on just to verify the system was fully functional before crawling back into the aft cabin and switching power cords. It always cooled properly as I don't think the ac board had any way of telling if the pump is on it not until the compressor gets so hot it trips due to lack of water.  Hence why I purge my system with the drop cord now!  

The only issue I see is the pump will never cycle off which can shorten the life span.  Live well pumps are built much less durable yet those run for longer than a nights rest at a time.  If I had a choice to sleep cool for a night by running direct power to the pump or sleep in the heat, the admiral would beat me for considering any ideas that meant not using the AC.   






I hope this helps a bit.  
  

boatman37

Yeah my pump is wired direct so not too easy to just plug into a 110 outlet. But the idea is the same as what I was asking. My AC rarely cycles anyway usually cause I turn it down lower than I probably should so it never actually reaches the set temp. But we only ever run it at the most for maybe 4 hours at a time since we rarely ever sleep over on it and are usually never down there more than maybe 6 hours at a time. The one caveat would be a day like yesterday but it wasn't that warm so wouldn't have had it on anyway but we were there for a few hours then came home to tie our dog out and feed him then went back down. In those cases it might run maybe 10 hours

boatman37

Didn't do anything with it today. Went out for a cruise then anchored for a bit so when we came back in I tried the AC again for the heck of it but nothing

boatman37

Ordered a new 'TRIAC' to try that. $29 for the part but $16 for shipping...lol

boatman37

Got the TRIAC part today and swapped it out. I now have power going to my pump but pump not coming on. Not sure if I just didn't get a good connection last week when I checked for power or maybe that I have 2 issues. Plan now is to put a plug on the end of the pump cord and plug it into an outlet to test directly to be sure. That pump is only not even 4 years old but the old pump was working but had a crack. Going to see if I can swap out the cracked part from the newer pump. Pump is a Dometic LC-2CP-MD 115V in case anyone knows anything about these pumps. The one connector (think it was the inlet) was cracked.

PickleRick

I'm glad to see you've made some headway.  Wouldn't surprise me if the short from the pump could have killed your board.

I've never messed with the inside of my pump but if mine wasn't working the first thing I'd check is to be sure it's getting water from the seacock and then I'd stick my finger in the inlet of the pump (with no power) to see if it's got an obstruction.  

Im not sure if I could sleep well knowing I had a cracked ac pump, I'd be afraid it would leak. I don't want to wake up with a wet cabin floor!

boatman37

Yeah I might take the impeller housing off the current pump and put it on the old pump. That is the part that was cracked on the old pump and the reason I replaced it 4 years ago but it worked fine. Also gonna grab the shaft with pliers if I can get them in there and see if it turns

boatman37

Well pulled my old pump out of the box and there is nowhere to grab the shaft but I did put a plug on the end and plug it in and it runs but very noisy so pulled the impeller housing cover off and pulled the impeller and its now quiet so that is an easy fix but now have to figure out how to get the rest of the housing off.

Here is what I'm looking at swapping from my other pump.

https://marinepartssource.com/250-gph-wet-end-repair-kit-march-pumps-0125-0115-0200

The piece circled in red is what was broke off the old pump which still has a working motor. It is the outlet

boatman37

Fixed it today. Hadn't been down there for awhile due to being sick but today went down and swapped the impeller and housing over to the old working motor and it's now working