Electrical panel failing on one side

cloe00

Hi,

We have a 2005 Rinker 342, and the electrical panel inside the cabin is failing on the right half of it. Nothing on that side works and the "DC Volts" needle stays down. We checked the batteries and they're fine. If we wait about an hour or so, the needle would come back to 12v and all starts working fine until we try to turn on the cabin lights, then everything on the right side of the panel turns off.

Any ideas of what could be causing this?

Thanks

Handymans342

That don't sound good. Can you post a pic?

MarkB

Bad breaker? At least you've isolated the problem. It has to do with wiring on that circuit, does it trip right away when you turn on the lights?

Liberty44140

you probably need to pull the panel to see if anything is loose or separated back there. You'll need to pull it to replace the main DC breaker anyway which may be a good place to start. Removing the panel can be a pain but is not a big deal if you know how to do it. I started this thread to discuss changing out the panel lights (you absolutely should change your bulbs to LED while you have the panel out) and it talks about how to get the panel out with pics. Good luck! 

https://rinkerboats.vanillaforums.com/discussion/6626/remove-electrical-panel-on-342-to-replace-lights/p1

raybo3

Maybe a short in the lighting circuit...........

cloe00

yes, as soon as I turn on the cabin lights it shuts down the whole right side.... and now nothing on that side of the panel will turn on.... See pic below.

cloe00

I opened the electrical panel and see no bad wiring or anything loose, but would like to know what the DC breaker looks like, from the pic below..

cloe00

Liberty44140

The main dc breaker is the upper right breaker named “dc main”. If you turn that off and back on do things work again?

LaRea

I'm with @raybo3 -- there's a short in the lighting circuit.  If you leave the lights turned off, will the other DC systems work?  Toilet, water pump, stereo?  And it only crashes when you turn the lights on?

cloe00

Hi,

At this moment, nothing on the right side will turn on, and the needle on the DC volts stays @ 0. We tried reseting everything, it just will not turn on... 

Stodge

I'd say check the ground back at the batterys and any common locations.  There is a breaker for the DC at the battery panel too.  I'm sure that's been mentioned already but you may want to check the connections to it as well.

MarkB

Check the breaker at the back of the boat, by the stern entrance. I had one main breaker for each battery in a panel beside the door. Maybe you popped both breakers. Or is there a main fuse?  It sounds like the either the light circuit has a short, a bad breaker or you overloaded the main circuit.

Here's what I'd do:

1) check power to main breaker in DC panel ... use multimeter, do you have 12V.

2) If not, find out why you don't have power to the panel, look for another main breaker for the battery (by transom entrance) or a fuse, or poor ground connection.

3) if you have power at panel (feeding main breaker), then the main breaker might be fried.  But first check, turn off ALL your circuits and try turning on your main breaker. If that doesn't work and you have power to the breaker, it could be the breaker itself.

4) if you have power at panel, could be ground or short after the main breaker.

A multimeter is your best friend in these circumstances, to check power supply, and continuity.

Good luck.