Rocker Switches not working on 2007 Captiva 226

I recently purchased this boat and when I got it home and hooked up a battery, the rocker switches did not work.  This includes the CD Player, Horn, Nav lights, Dock lights, Courtesy lights, Blower, Bilge pump, and accessories.  The Captain's Call exhaust switch works as well as the ignition and all the gauges from what I can tell.  The engine will turn over.  I have found 5 fuses in the engine bay a 20, 40, 40, 15, and a 3 IIRC.  They all look good.  I have a total of 2 positive leads hooked to the wing nut + terminal and a large + lead on the post terminal.  The rest of the leads seems to be all black or wrapped in wire loom and hooked to the - post and wing nut terminals.  I'm struggling to find what I'm missing but with all these switches not working, I feel like it has to be something simple.  

Has anyone else experienced this trouble before?  And can anyone offer any advice?  I really excited about having a boat again but this is starting to get frustrating.  Thanks for any help in advance.  

Comments

  • CopperWiresCopperWires Member Posts: 9
    Nobody has had a similar problem?
  • Black_DiamondBlack_Diamond Member Posts: 5,439 ✭✭✭✭✭
    That's a lot of switches to not work. Are all your batteries on and connected? Circuit breakers on?

    Past owner of a 2003 342FV
    PC BYC, Holland, MI
  • 212rowboat212rowboat Member Posts: 2,593 ✭✭✭✭✭
    do you have a meter you can touch leads to on the switches themselves? should be three wires for each (at least)- one hot, one ground, one bridging either the hot or ground to make connection to the device the switch controls. 

    in most cases, it is the hot wire that the switch bridges, but in some cases folks use the negative post to complete the circuit.

    there could possibly be one single hot lead running to the switches for the devices- and an after switch wire from the switch to the devices themselves.. if you can determine which one is hot from the battery, and distinguish it from what is hot to the device- I rec you flip your multimeter over to continuity and touch the hot lead on the device itself and the same wire at the switch and hope for a beep....

    I'm hoping someone didn't just flop a panel in there to look good for selling the floater, and left you a mess of wiring to figure out.
  • BabyboomerBabyboomer Member Posts: 918 mod
    Have you checked your battery selector to see if it's operating correctly? Also check to see if you may have a 12 volt main switch I'm just drawing straws here also check your grounds if everything is not working sounds like a ground problem I had that problem with my radio and CD player I just ran a ground from the battery for test purposes when I touched it to the radio chassis the radio came on

    Slip 866 Sunset Marina Byrdstown Tn
  • CopperWiresCopperWires Member Posts: 9
    Thanks for the responses. I only have one battery and I don't see a matter switch our selector anywhere. The battery was unhooked so I don't know for sure of I even have everything hooked up correctly. My guess is that I don't since none of the stitches work. I would like to start there of anyone can confirm or point out errors at the battery. I can get a picture of it tomorrow. My volt meter is dead too so I have to pick one up tomorrow. I took the screws out of the dash to look for any obvious loose our faulty connections but I was afraid to pull on it too hard. It's pretty flimsy plastic. I'll retry if need be. So can some one tell right from wrong with a picture? I'm going to take the standard boating wiring diagram with me next time too.
  • Black_DiamondBlack_Diamond Member Posts: 5,439 ✭✭✭✭✭
    1. You almost certainly have a battery switch on board. 2. It is common to have additional wires connected to the battery besides the obvious 'large' connection. Look for some stray wires :) 3. Are you sure your boat is suppose to have only 1 battery? Silly question, but many have a house (deep cycle) battery for running the radio, bilge pump and other non engine equipment.

    Past owner of a 2003 342FV
    PC BYC, Holland, MI
  • BabyboomerBabyboomer Member Posts: 918 mod
    Not a lot of Runabouts with a battery switch as I have seen why I don't know

    Slip 866 Sunset Marina Byrdstown Tn
  • CopperWiresCopperWires Member Posts: 9
    It is definitely not a dual battery setup from what I can see and usually a battery switch will be fairly obvious and will be conveniently located. Maybe I'm blind but I just don't see one in the engine compartment or at the helm.

    I'm also aware that the two main power leads provide power to the engine and the smaller leads provide power to accessories. Other than a couple smaller gauge red wires the rest are in wire loom and aren't obviously positive leads without testing them. I was hoping someone might be able to point out something that is obviously hooked up incorrectly if I provide a picture. I just have to run by there this afternoon to get the picture. Thanks for all the helpo so far.
  • 212rowboat212rowboat Member Posts: 2,593 ✭✭✭✭✭
    most switches are right near the battery.. My '05 212 didn't have one, either, before I converted to a double battery and installed a switch.. most are going to be near the battery for one reason if not any other: the heavy gauge leads that connects to them to a switch are expensive and you don't want to run any further than you need to.. the only leads supposed to be connected to a battery other than the heavy lead is the automatic bilge and the radio (for memory purposes).. everything else should be connected to the switch... if everything is connected to the battery, instead, I'd guess you can stop looking for the switch that may or may not reside on your rig.. :-)

    get yourself a stretch of 12ga wire.. say, 20' worth... put an inline fuse in either end of say, 20a.. tap into the incoming hot leads at the rocker panel, and then touch the other end directly to the battery.. see if your switches work.. if they do, you've got a break in continuity of that hot line..

    if they don't, wire the hot lead in the loom back up as it was... tap the negative lead, instead.. touch the other end of the 20' stretch to the negative post on the battery.. if the rockers light up, you have a bad ground...

    when you get your multimeter working again, use your 20" lead to test out continuity for both leads and their grounds...

    that is pretty much all you can do to isolate issues.. what could have happened to your system is that someone touched the negative lead to a hot source inadvertently and sent charge to the switches, which weren't grounded at that point, and you could have lost every one of them... you can test this easily with your meter by closing the circuit on the rocker switch and testing for continuity across the connection posts... they should have that continuity while closed, and not when open.. they could have blown internally if charged up the ground line, which is one reason why I like to fuse even ground lines on a boat though folks look strangely at me when I suggest such a thing. 
  • 212rowboat212rowboat Member Posts: 2,593 ✭✭✭✭✭
    and something else that just occurred to me............. if you have juice at your panel when the boat is running, but don't have juice to your switches, and both the hot and cold checked out using the before mentioned procedure- you may want to carefully clean and vasoline up your alternator connection to hot.

    vasoline, in addition to other purposes I'm told it's handy for but never tried, will NOT allow corrosion to gather on electrical points... it lives in my toolbox for that reason alone, though my wife thinks that is hilarious and likely gives her a little pause whilst I'm in the yard or at the dock working on my boat.. :-D
  • CopperWiresCopperWires Member Posts: 9
    Thanks for the tips.  I'll get a new multimeter and start testing.  I have some wire around the garage that I can use and I'm sure I can find an inline fuse to use on that wire.  

    As for the vasoline, if you want to get your wife to quit looking at you funny, you could always use some dielectric grease in substitution.  That's what I have always used on ATVs and more specifically my old Cannondale ATV fuel injection system which had an electrical system that had gremlins from the factory.  

    I will be stopping by the storage unit today to take a picture of the wires for reference and I will be comparing that to the wiring diagram to hopefully eliminate some questions I have about the leads. 
  • 212rowboat212rowboat Member Posts: 2,593 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Heheheheehehee... But that wouldn't be as good a story with the dielectric grease, and it costs more...

    While in the sand box, we would protect our pistol magazines from sand (sand will stop a follower on the magazines spring quick like) by shoving them in condoms.. also, a condom over the muzzle of a rifle would protect from sand infiltrating the chamber and jamming a cartridge- or worse, infiltrating the gas ports and disallowing auto feeding.. its not like you can buy those things easily in gulf Islamic countries.. so.. took them with us.. along with vasoline for electrical connections... We would always send the new guys in to buy them, and had him buy huge boxes and jars of both at the same time, before we left... I would love to hear the comments after we left, and what they thought we were doing whilst we were deployed.. :-)
  • CopperWiresCopperWires Member Posts: 9
    Ha ha...What you do with other dudes, condoms and Vaseline in the middle of the desert I'd your choice. Ha ha. Just kidding. Thanks for your service.
  • talleyptalleyp Member Posts: 2
    edited March 2014
    First off what engine do you have? Some Volvos have a circuit breaker right by the right manifold and fuses underneath that cover also But you said you just got this boat, please don't tell me it's black with a 6.2.....
  • CopperWiresCopperWires Member Posts: 9
    Ok, crisis averted and I'm very embarrassed to admit, I had some positive leads identified incorrectly initially and upon checking fuses, I didn't get the fuse seated properly.  I'm chalking it up to new toy excitement.  Yesterday I was finally able to spend more than 15 minutes on trying to diagnose the problem and it quickly became apparent what I needed to do.  I knew it had to be something simple since none of them were working.  

    You should have seen me.  After I verified that all the electrical components were working, I sat in the boat with a big smile on my face listening to the now working radio and was daydreaming of being on the water.  LOL.   

    I appreciate all the suggestions that were given to help me figure it out.  I'm looking forward to warming weather and being able to get it out of storage and take some pictures and get it running for longer than a few seconds.


  • BabyboomerBabyboomer Member Posts: 918 mod
    I have those brain farts also :-)


    Slip 866 Sunset Marina Byrdstown Tn
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