Bowthruster stopped working

[Dino]

Hi folks,
I am having bowthruster problems too. I’m away cruising at the moment and my Venus 80kgf bowthruster has stopped working.
I’ve checked the switches and they seem okay, the fuses are fine and there is power at the solenoid.
I thought it might be the on/off switch but that wasn’t the issue.
Someone mentioned that there is a negative wire at the motor that might go faulty and that sometimes a new negative feed is required.
Does anyone have any faultfinding experience of these units?
Thanks

 

[jrudge]

You say power at the solonoid.

Does it click and do you have volts downstream of the solonoid if it does click ?

Do you get the same voltage as before the solonoid with it off? If so the motor is” disconnected” in some way. either loose wire etc or open circuit on the coil / internal connections.

 

[scotty123]

Hi folks,
I am having bowthruster problems too. I’m away cruising at the moment and my Venus 80kgf bowthruster has stopped working.
I’ve checked the switches and they seem okay, the fuses are fine and there is power at the solenoid.
I thought it might be the on/off switch but that wasn’t the issue.
Someone mentioned that there is a negative wire at the motor that might go faulty and that sometimes a new negative feed is required.
Does anyone have any faultfinding experience of these units?
Thanks

Does it have a shear pin twixt motor & thruster?

 

[BB1]

Hi folks,
I am having bowthruster problems too. I’m away cruising at the moment and my Venus 80kgf bowthruster has stopped working.
I’ve checked the switches and they seem okay, the fuses are fine and there is power at the solenoid.
I thought it might be the on/off switch but that wasn’t the issue.
Someone mentioned that there is a negative wire at the motor that might go faulty and that sometimes a new negative feed is required.
Does anyone have any faultfinding experience of these units?
Thanks

Probably the negative feed to the solenoids via the overheat switch, take a new neg feed from main neg connection to the solenoids. But you wont have overheat protection.

 

[colhel]

I had an issue with ours where the bow thruster wouldn't work when leaving our berth, no red light showing at the control switch, a good blast to put some power back in the batteries and all was well when we moored up

 

[Cruless]

Every time I have had to repair a bow thruster if it’s been silent it’s been the negative wire previously mentioned to the solenoids, if you can hear a rapid clicking noise it’s usually a battery issue

 

[Dino]

So I eventually got round to fixing this. I belled out the cable from the joystick module to the thruster and found I had a broken wire somewhere along the cable. So I ordered a new 10m cable from Vetus thinking it would be enough. It seems that the original installers thought the same and they jointed the cable in the bilge area around 4 or 5 ft from the thruster. When I started removing the old cable I found that the installers had extended the vetus cable with crimp connectors in the bilge and they were badly corroded and one had failed. I removed the cable and found that it was badly corroded and black a few feet up the cable. Re-ran the cable and jointed it in a dry area under a seat rather than in the bilge.
All working fine now.
I'm now tempted to install on of the Thrust-It from JS Marine Services as featured in this months Motorboat Owner Magazine. Looks like a nice simple remote controller for £149.

 

[Croftie]

So I eventually got round to fixing this. I belled out the cable from the joystick module to the thruster and found I had a broken wire somewhere along the cable. So I ordered a new 10m cable from Vetus thinking it would be enough. It seems that the original installers thought the same and they jointed the cable in the bilge area around 4 or 5 ft from the thruster. When I started removing the old cable I found that the installers had extended the vetus cable with crimp connectors in the bilge and they were badly corroded and one had failed. I removed the cable and found that it was badly corroded and black a few feet up the cable. Re-ran the cable and jointed it in a dry area under a seat rather than in the bilge.
All working fine now.
I'm now tempted to install on of the Thrust-It from JS Marine Services as featured in this months Motorboat Owner Magazine. Looks like a nice simple remote controller for £149.

Hi

See my old thread, much cheaper, only downside is the buttons are north/south rather than east west.
http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?477251-Bowthruster-Remote&highlight=