Double trouble

[Capt’nKarl]

2018 R-23. We went out for a weekend getaway expecting to have a great time. As we left the dock I turned on the bow thruster. The thruster light on the dash lit up but when I moved the lever…nada. Not a click not a sound. The red indicator light goes off when you move the lever to either side. I told the first mate the bow thruster was just a crutch and we could dock without it when we returned, as sweat wet my brow. So on we went to our anchorage. We arrived at the site and I engaged the windlass,WHAT? …nada. I did hear the solenoid click but there was no movement of the windlass. I went forward and manually released the anchor and we set it without any issues. Here’s my question. Batteries are all AGM and all about 2- 1/2 years old. No corrosion on the posts. The bow thruster has its own battery. Two batteries on different systems failing at the same time seems strange. All other 12 volt systems worked fine. Fridge ran all night. Engine cranked this morning without a hiccup. Any wisdom from the group would be helpful. Oh, and we docked perfectly without the bow thruster.
Cheers,
Capt’nKarl

 

[trailertrawlerkismet]

There should be breaker fuse that has tripped, there be one breaker that controls both units or one for each. Not familiar with the location but when tripped there is a red lever that needs to be reset. Maybe is listed in the owners manual, regarding its location or someone with an R23 will chime in. Let us know what the solution is.

Jim

 

[baz]

The red-lever switch could be behind the helm console and accessible behind the panel in the head room.

 

[Catch22]

Thruster battery switch and 200amp fuse is in port lazerette. The windlass breaker is in the fuse access panel behind the helm in the head. Not sure why you are experiencing double trouble.....check for bananas onboard??...good luck..

 

[BB marine]

Without knowing how Ranger wired your boat, not all are wired the same! You may have two issues going on.

If the thruster battery is the source of power for the windlass then two things to check (1) main thruster fuse 200 amp which should be located near the thruster battery switch. (2) Thruster battery condition , connections, and battery voltage at the thruster itself. With thruster battery switch on check voltage at the thruster battery, the thruster fuse block and then at the thruster the voltages should be close to the same with minimal voltage drop from the length of cable. When checking the thruster battery voltages if you find them to be low put a full charge to the thruster battery and then repeat voltage checks and then thruster operation. Does it work now? Next with thruster battery switch on check the voltage at the windlass breaker located in the head Check voltage at the terminals. If you have voltage at both terminals you have voltage going to the windless. Turn the thruster battery off. Now recheck voltage at the terminals. If there is voltage which I suspect there will be. The thruster battery is not the power source for the windlass. I think the house bank powers the windlass.

When you determine what your voltages are at each component that you are having issues with you can then start to troubleshoot. Without looking at your boat and given the information that you provided I would be looking at two different problems.Thruster - A battery issue, depleted battery, bad connection, fuse open, thruster controller connection or faulty controller, issue with thruster motor or relays. I would inspect in the order listed above because I would bet it will be resolved before you get to the controller. Windlass- You indicated that you heard the relay or solenoid click. This would indicate that the switch is wired to the house bank at the dash and there was power to the solenoids. If you checked the windlass breaker and saw battery voltage on both sides of the breaker and the solenoid is clicking it is time to take a look at the connections at the windlass. Check for voltage at the windlass connections when pushing down on the bow windlass switches. Is there voltage present? (Yes) windlass issue,( No )battery connection issue, wiring issue.

Most of the Fluid motion boats have the windlass powered off the house bank. Personally I think it should be powered of the thruster bank but it isn't on the Cutwaters and I know some Rangers because there was a thread not to long ago that started because when the Ranger owner used his windlass without the engine running it would interrupt his Garmin plotter because of the voltage drop. (Garmin is powered off the house bank)

My theories may be wrong here. So you asked for a suggestion or "Wisdom" I can't give you that!!! Suggestion I can. Troubleshoot each issue separately. They may be related but it is best to start with the thruster, troubleshoot it first.

 

[Capt’nKarl]

Update. Had the boat plugged into shore power all night. Went to the bow thruster control and it worked perfectly. Still nothing from the windlass except clicking of the solenoid. No fuses or breakers are tripped. Disconnected from shore power and within 30 minutes thruster didn’t work. Has to be the thruster battery. Just finished pulling all 4 batteries, 2 house, 1 starter and 1 thruster. Heading to a Interstate Battery shop to have all the batteries tested. At least I know now what was wrong with the thruster. More to follow after I get the batteries tested. Thanks everyone for your suggestions.
Sweaty but happy,
Capt’nKarl

 

[IvanGuzman]

Hello Capt’nKarl,

have you checked the voltage to your batteries? also what I will recommend is to charge all batteries to full before testing for loads. this will get you a truth answer so you don't have to keep having the same issues here (or buying new batteries). sounds like you had a dead battery for thruster?

for windlass, check voltage behind the dash at the solenoid, power going in and power coming out (you have negative and power cables here) also check for voltage at the breaker here, you have just the power going in and power coming out.

hope this helps and let us know how it goes here.

thanks,

 

[Capt’nKarl]

Ok so now I have some answers and more questions. Here’s the battery results. All the batteries were connected for at least 18 hours to the battery charger which was connected to shore power. The only power used during the night was the fridge (on a setting of 2) and the usual 24/7 equipment. The 2 house batteries are Premium West Marine Group 27 AGM 92Ah. Install date 4/19. Both of these batteries showed 13.5 volts with no load. Once a load was placed the voltage dropped slightly but the overall health of the battery was in the middle green zone. Both of the batteries tested the same. The starting battery is an Autocraft Starting Marine M27-1 CCA 800 @ 0 degrees F. Install date 04/20. This battery tested quite healthy. The bow thruster battery as expected was dead. Here’s my question. I have 2 ok house batteries, 1 very good starter battery and 1 dead thruster battery. I’ve always read replace all batteries at the same time. We still have good boating weather ahead but no trips planned for the next 2-3 weeks. I didn’t buy a new thruster battery today. I would appreciate some feedback from this excellent group. before I reinstall. I would appreciate any suggestions on replacement.
Capt’nKarl

 

[scross]

It’s my understanding from the experts in this forum that you need to replace all the batteries in the same bank at the same time. As long as the batteries from the three separate banks aren’t connected together (except in emergencies) you can just replace the engine bank or the thruster+windlass bank or the house bank separately. I replaced a still good 2015 single battery in the thruster+windlass bank and a still good 2015 single battery for the engine bank in 2020. The replaced all four still good 2015 house bank batteries in 2021 with no problems.
I try to match the batteries in separate banks in terms of Amp/Hr ratings but not sure that’s completely necessary.

 

[Capt’nKarl]

Thank you for that explanation. That’s good news then. I thought since all the batteries are charged together from the same charger they were considered 1 bank. With the 2 ok batteries in the House bank, 1 very good battery for the Starter bank and 1 dead battery for the thruster bank, all I need to do is replace the thruster battery.
Wonderful!

 

[BB marine]

As I suggested before in my last post. Troubleshoot each issue separately. The Windlass is in most installs powered by the house bank. The Thruster is obviously powered by the Thruster bank.

When replacing batteries it is a good idea to maintain the same battery chemistry. Use all batteries of in like kind. Flooded wet cell, Maintenance free, AGM, GEL. The charger has settings on it that will charge as per battery type. Depending on which charger you have ( single charge output) (3 charge output) the banks charge in a parallel battery bank on a (single out put)when used with a ACR. The (3 charge output) starts out charging each bank separately until one bank is above 13Volts and then they all charge as one bank unless the ACR is disabled.

In your case you have what seems to be a failed thruster battery. The rest of the batteries on board based on your testing are in good usable condition. If I was replacing the truster battery I would match it up with the West Marine House bank. Install it as in like kind.

A note about the windlass. Last year at the SWF Rendezvous Mike Rizzo and I troubleshot a R23 windlass with the same symptoms as yours. It was powered by the house bank and had power at all points noted in my previous post. When I checked voltage at the windlass it was 12.7 Volts but the windlass was in operable. The issue was with the windlass motor. The Ranger owner said it worked fine, then he noticed a couple of times it seemed to be intermittent in operation. The we checked it out it didn't work at all.

 

[Capt’nKarl]

Thanks Brian. I’m replacing the thruster battery today with the same type as the house bank, AGM. Now that I know the house batteries are good I suspect the inoperable windlass is caused by the motor as well. I’ll be tearing it apart soon to try to find the problem. In the last 2 months I did some routine cleaning and maintenance on the windlass and it worked fine at that point but things happen. Thank you for giving us the value of your experience. I’m sure you saved many Tugnutters money, worries and loss of sleep with your suggestions and recommendations. You are truly appreciated.
Cheers,
Capt’nKarl

 

[Capt’nKarl]

Ok. Here’s a puzzler. I replaced the bow thruster battery today with the same type I have for the house batteries. The thruster and house batteries are West Marine Group 27 AGM 92 Ah. I didn’t have any problem putting everything back in the right place since I had labeled all the wires as to their position. After getting everything cleaned up I decided to tackle the inoperative windlass so I went to the bow to take a look at what I might need. I manually spun the clutch to clear the chain then decided to push the deck UP switch. Lo and behold the windlass came to life like it was new. UP /DOWN no issues. So it got me to thinking could the windlass be wired to the thruster battery too? How can you tell? New battery and now everything works fine.
Cheers,
Karl

 

[scross]

Karl,
In my earlier reply, I called the bank that controlled the windlass “thruster+windlass”. In my 2009 R25 Classic there’s one battery in a unique bank that powers both windlass and the bow and stern thrusters. I believe this was the “normal” wiring years ago.
Glad to hear that the new battery resolved your issues.

 

[Capt’nKarl]

Thank you. I really appreciate your help. Looking at the wiring diagram for the R-23 it read doesn’t show where the windlass gets it’s power. I’m hoping someone from FM can shed some light on this issue. Does the bow thruster and windlass share the same battery power source?

 

[Red Raven]

On our R27 Classic the windlass is powered by the thruster battery. I like this arrangement and think it is the best approach. It is easy to test on our boat by turning off (and on) your thruster battery switch and testing the windlass controls each time to see when they work. Doing this ,of course, would assume the R23 has a thruster battery switch somewhere.

Curt

 

[Capt’nKarl]

Thank you Red Raven (Curt). I just went out to the boat to check on everything. The good news is all 4 batteries read 13.7 volts. Shore power is on and the battery charger is on. Only power draw is the fridge and the 24/7 items which isn’t much. I turned off the thruster switch in the starboard lazaret then went forward to see if the windlass worked…. and it did; so the windlass is not connected to the thruster battery. Everything is working which is great but I sure would like to find out why the windlass quit at the same time the bow thruster did. But it’s a boat, full of mystery and surprises, so I’ll wait till we launch again to see what other devils might be hide’n in the electrical system. Thanks everyone for your valuable information. Until we meet again.
Cheers,
Capt’nKarl

 

[BB marine]

Everything is working which is great but I sure would like to find out why the windlass quit at the same time the bow thruster did. But it’s a boat, full of mystery and surprises, so I’ll wait till we launch again to see what other devils might be hide’n in the electrical system.

The issue was with the windlass motor. The Ranger owner said it worked fine, then he noticed a couple of times it seemed to be intermittent in operation. Then we checked it out it didn't work at all.

This seems like the same issue you may be having. I find when something doesn't work and then it does work. follow your tracts backward. What changed? If there is no obvious answer and you did nothing to repair the issue. The issue is there but intermittent. These issues are always the hardest to fix. The easiest is use it until it fails completely. It is not an issue that will leave you dead in the water.

 

[Capt’nKarl]

Thanks again Brian. Our plan is to use the windlass as much as we can and take a wait and see approach. I can always manually deploy and retrieve the anchor if the windlass quits again. I did it with our R-21 and can do it again. At least where we are the most chain we deploy is 40 feet so that’s no bid deal. I appreciate your follow up and advice. Have a great weekend.
Karl

 

[Deb2021]

Not sure if you attended the As the Prop Turns - Departures and Arrivals webinar this past week but I asked the question about the windlass power source because I used my windlass for the first time last weekend (new to me 2011 25 SC) and I wanted to understand which battery bank it was impacting.
Kenny chuckled and said most commonly the windlass is powered by the house bank but in older models it was wired to the thruster battery. I came down to the boat, got everything turned on and through a process of elimination, I was able to determine that my windlass is powered through the thruster battery. I started with engine and house switches turned on - windlass did not work. I turned off house switch, turned on thruster switch...windlass worked! I was extremely happy to understand which battery is powering the windlass as my previous boat was a sailboat with limited electronic appliances and no windlass! 😀
Deb