![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Jan. 19th, 2022 01:52 pmThe big yellow RatShack multimeter I had for decades crapped out so I ordered one of the $7 ones that have taken over. The leads really don't stay in worth a damn and that's made the $7 replacement frustrating. And, Buzz Lightyear meme style, electrical failures everywhere. Trying to replace the failed compass (kind of crazy that a compass can fail) with the Lawrance plotter since there are mounting holes for it and power there already, but then the toggle switch on the control panel for the compass didn't actually send power to the power leads that were going to the compass, so I did something I've been dreading and avoiding and took the wingnuts off that hold the switch panel in place and tried to make sense of the wiring behind it.
There's a massive bundle of red wire. This is karmic for me re-wiring the CX500 all with a spool of red wire and bragging about that. The massive bundle of red wires has about 20 wires that come out, loop around at different lengths, and go back in. A bunch of the red wires come out one end to switches on the switch panel and a bunch of red wires come out the same end and go elsewhere and a bunch come out the same end and loop back in and a bunch more red wires come out and go to a panel that connect to other wires. The other end of the massive bundle of red wires does likewise. So, this gives a superficial appearance of order while at the same time making it impossible to tell what the hell is going on. So, hours with the multimeter checking which switch goes to which place on the breakout panel and finding that some switches go to none, some go to multiple, some switches that go to none trigger a short when you turn them on (!!!). Mind, all of this was very professionally done by a maniac and clearly has not been touched by anyone else because every wire is exactly the correct length to go exactly where it goes and no where else. Before I'd observed that two rows of switches were in one style and the third row was a different style, of simple toggle switches. One of the toggle switches is house lighting. It works. The compass power (for its built in light) fault was a toggle switch failure. The four other toggle switches besides house light also don't work. By virtue of being on probably, the house light toggle continues to work but probably not for much longer. Wiring for it bypass the breakout board and goes straight to the switch. Many switches that used to be hooked up to something no longer are. The instrument panel switch is disconnected and instrument panel lights are attached to the ignition switch, which makes sense. The bilge blower is gone. Dome light, panel light, water pressure are all gone. Bilge pump bypasses this mess and has its own little panel and other bilge pump is hard wired. Spreader lights work to light up the foredeck (I keep forgetting that exists). Masthead lights were working. After moving the compass power from a toggle to one of the fancier breaker switches I flipped the mast head lights on, and they did not come on, so I crawled through the system tracing wires again before figuring out that the mast head light is getting power and is simply burnt out now, which is just bloody super. That's the required navigation lights. On top of the mast.
Of the wires going out of this, some head toward the radio/starboard where apparently a very large chart plotter was once mounted, some head starboard under the starboard pilot berth, but most form one big bundle that crosses under the cockpit and goes under the port berth/seating, to most of the house lights, the water pressure pump I just pulled out (another story), and stuff up the mast.
Hardware in Rio Vista yesterday for various projects including mounting the Lawrance unit with wing nuts so it can easily detach and come inside. Its power/sounder connection plugs in to the unit but had to cut the wire to avoid making a 1" hole through various places including the cabin to pass the connector through. Got groceries too. Fighting with the mail server this morning, trying to throw RAM and swap at it, which means resizing filesystems and their partitions.
There's a massive bundle of red wire. This is karmic for me re-wiring the CX500 all with a spool of red wire and bragging about that. The massive bundle of red wires has about 20 wires that come out, loop around at different lengths, and go back in. A bunch of the red wires come out one end to switches on the switch panel and a bunch of red wires come out the same end and go elsewhere and a bunch come out the same end and loop back in and a bunch more red wires come out and go to a panel that connect to other wires. The other end of the massive bundle of red wires does likewise. So, this gives a superficial appearance of order while at the same time making it impossible to tell what the hell is going on. So, hours with the multimeter checking which switch goes to which place on the breakout panel and finding that some switches go to none, some go to multiple, some switches that go to none trigger a short when you turn them on (!!!). Mind, all of this was very professionally done by a maniac and clearly has not been touched by anyone else because every wire is exactly the correct length to go exactly where it goes and no where else. Before I'd observed that two rows of switches were in one style and the third row was a different style, of simple toggle switches. One of the toggle switches is house lighting. It works. The compass power (for its built in light) fault was a toggle switch failure. The four other toggle switches besides house light also don't work. By virtue of being on probably, the house light toggle continues to work but probably not for much longer. Wiring for it bypass the breakout board and goes straight to the switch. Many switches that used to be hooked up to something no longer are. The instrument panel switch is disconnected and instrument panel lights are attached to the ignition switch, which makes sense. The bilge blower is gone. Dome light, panel light, water pressure are all gone. Bilge pump bypasses this mess and has its own little panel and other bilge pump is hard wired. Spreader lights work to light up the foredeck (I keep forgetting that exists). Masthead lights were working. After moving the compass power from a toggle to one of the fancier breaker switches I flipped the mast head lights on, and they did not come on, so I crawled through the system tracing wires again before figuring out that the mast head light is getting power and is simply burnt out now, which is just bloody super. That's the required navigation lights. On top of the mast.
Of the wires going out of this, some head toward the radio/starboard where apparently a very large chart plotter was once mounted, some head starboard under the starboard pilot berth, but most form one big bundle that crosses under the cockpit and goes under the port berth/seating, to most of the house lights, the water pressure pump I just pulled out (another story), and stuff up the mast.
Hardware in Rio Vista yesterday for various projects including mounting the Lawrance unit with wing nuts so it can easily detach and come inside. Its power/sounder connection plugs in to the unit but had to cut the wire to avoid making a 1" hole through various places including the cabin to pass the connector through. Got groceries too. Fighting with the mail server this morning, trying to throw RAM and swap at it, which means resizing filesystems and their partitions.
