Electric anchor winch

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chimere382

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Hello, its the Jeanneu 40 person again. I have a Lofrans electric anchor which is not working. The hand held control on inspection seems clean and dry together with all the connections. The voltmeter reads .5 at the winch,the same at the stern head but 13.5 at the battery terminal, seeming to indicate the problem is between the stern head and the batteries. But, the cables are behind the everything running alond the port side of the boat in a heavy duty plastic tube,therefore i cant really see how a such a housing could be compromised. There is not a murmur of electricity at the winch. Any suggestions gratefully received.
 
check out your hypthesis by

1 put a battery and cables very close to the winch terminals and connect up. That checks the winch.

2 run two cables loosely on the deck from the battery to the winch, and connect up. That checks the cabling.
 
Agree with the above,

1) check isolator switch at the battery end of the circuit. 13.5v on the output side?

2)check the solenoid at the other end. 13.5v across terminals? Bridge the control terminals briefly to test solenoid operation. Solenoid clacks loudly and windlass runs.

3) If both those are OK check the control box and its wiring.

At a guess - 6/10 its the isolator or solenoid. 2/10 its bad contact at connectors, 1/10 each its the control box or the windlass itself.

My isolator melted (why it didn't trip I don't know) when the windlass corroded and seized (scabby Lewmar vertical windlass made out of cheese instead of metal) . An overloaded isolator needs investigation - why?
 
Sounds like the contacts in the control box have gone. Very common with Lofrans. Might work with cleaning but probably worth replacing the box.
 
I had once some reasonably heavy wire running from the battery to the switch panel under the carpet on the little boat.
I had a complete electrical failure and like you had power at one end of the wire and not the other. For a while I thought I was getting confused with my testing. Eventually pulled the wire out to find that the insulation had been compromised in the middle. This had allowed corrosion to eat the copper away. It gets a bit salty under the carpet. So one piece of wire with a hole in the middle.
For the OP yes just use logic to track down the hole in the supply or control circuit. good luck olewill
 
Have you actually had it running? Had this trouble with my boat when I bought it and there was a second unmarked isolator that had no indication that it was anything to do with the winch.
 
sarabande said:
check out your hypthesis by

1 put a battery and cables very close to the winch terminals and connect up. That checks the winch.

2 run two cables loosely on the deck from the battery to the winch, and connect up. That checks the cabling.
Click to expand...

Thanks everybody for the excellent suggestions above.
We thought that we would try Sarabande's idea above, re hooking up a battery directly to the winch terminals and trying it this way.
We have lugged the engine starter battery to the fore cabin, and have a pair of battery jumper cables all ready.
However I am not too sure which terminal to attach the +ve lead to on the winch, as there are two on there, as in the photo below.

P6090399_zps781a6646.jpg


The terminal on the lower +ve cable is a bit green, but it was fine under the nut, yet there was not a murmur of life from the windlass when we tried to operate it in the conventional fashion.
 
This drawing from the Lofrans site http://www.lofrans.com/documents.php?categoryId=1 should throw some light on the connections

- View attachment 32570

As can be seen, the middle terminal is negative, and both outside terminals are positive - up and down rotation.

Your problem could be the contacts of the contactors in the control box.

Have you checked the voltage both sides of the circuit breaker, and assuming correct at both places, the problem could be within the control box.

The circuitry is almost the same as I have with my Quick windlass. I opened the control box over the winter and cleaned the contacts and rebuilt it - after scouring the garage floor for a bit that sprung out!!
 
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When testing, be careful not to weld the jump leads to the motor terminals and its a good idea to have a circuit breaker or fuse in line with the positive lead.
 
Do also check the earth (-ve) connection - probably on the engine block. I had intermittent then total failure which turned out to be a poorly made earth connection which evenually overheated and burnt out.
 
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