Electrical HELP???

Jencourt

Well-Known Member
The new rig has a wiring issue.

When I key the microphone on the radio my Chart plotter goes black.

Anyone know a good electrical guy in Comox valley. Or, have ideas for me that maybe I can fix myself and save. I kind of think they may have spliced into power wire from one to get power for the other.
Any help would be great

Cheers: Ray
 
should be easy enough to to follow each red wire from each unit and see where they are spliced in,
if they are hooked together to a shared power source take them apart and run each of them to thier own dedicated source,
I usually run my radio to a battery direct power source that way if your drifting or trolling the main ignition does not have to be on to have the vhf on.
just dont forget to shut it off when your done for the day or if you have the option run it to the accessory side of the ignition same as the finder
 
Sounds like it's possible that the gauge of wiring is too small for the load. When the wiring gauge is too small, there is substantial loss of power over the run, and in your case, it might not be enough to run both devices. Alternatively, you might have corroded terminals at either/both ends also leading to a loss of power.

Personally, I'd likely get on this one right away before you do some costly damage to your electronics. Hopefully it's not a short circuit or a grounding issue that could damage both units or cause a fire.

You'd likely want to run a fairly heavy gauge wire like #6AWG from your Main DC bus bar or distribution fused at 40Amps to a distribution panel. Then run appropriate fused wiring to each component. Chartplotters usually take a 3Amp fuse and I think VHF radios take a 10Amp.
 
PM incoming
 
I run Marine Duo Tinned AWG 6 from my battery selector switch, up to a distribution tee, from there one set of power wires goes to the ignition and another set goes to a Fuse panel. My HDS 8/HDS7/Stereo/Radar run off of independant fuses. My DSC/AIS/lights/horn and wipers run off the ignition. Down Riggers/Bilge pumps are run off of another dist. centre off the Battery switch at the stern. I run 3 batteries and two switches,two batteries are dedicated for acc. power and have their own switch, the other is totally dedicated to the main motor and it's start/charge circuit. I lost all power once years ago, it doesn't happen anymore!
 
Back
Top