Electric anchor windlass problem

[Donheist]

Morning. My windlass won’t go.

Yesterday it went up but not down. I bought a new solenoid and then misidentified a wire and wired it up to short the battery (I know!)

I unwired it but only after engine battery went to 9v.

Rewired properly and have engine battery good charge - an hour in alternator and plugged in overnight

Now engine battery has 13.6v but still only 7 at the windlass. All there is between them in a rotary switch and a circuit breaker. What to do?

Obviously I can haul the anchor by hand if need be but my wife will skip Positano and head straight for Amalfi rather than haul the anchor (seems sensible) so my kids beach time depends on me fixing it.

Help!

 

[coopec]

It is easy enough to wire up incorrectly. Hopefully I've done mine OK but I haven't tested it yet as I have yet to wire up the remote control. I know on the package there was a BIG Warning to wire it up carefully as it would destroy the control unit.

I'm sure there will be experts here but they 'll want to know what make of anchor winch.

Clive

 

[RichardS]

If the battery is really at 13.6V (which must be whilst it's on charge or shortly afterwards) and the voltage at the solenoid with nothing else draining the battery is 7V, then the large current which went through the shorted cables must have damaged something. Did the circuit breaker trip out? The burnt connections could be the rotary switch or the wiring or possible the circuit breaker although that sounds less likely.

The best thing to do would be to use the multimeter to test the voltage at the switch and the circuit breaker to see if one of those is the source of the voltage drop. You could also disconnect the windlass wiring at both ends then connect one end +ve to the same end -ve and test the resistance of the entire run from the other end. If it's more than a fraction of an ohm then there is a problem and you can test the resistance of each component.

Richard

 

[Donheist]

Epilogue. Anchor now goes up and down.

Thank you for help. It was the fuse (big legrand thing that I thought was a circuit breaker). To replace I went to a chandlers and an electrician followed by a second chandlers who walked with me to a lighting shop, translated and sorted me out. I got two for 9 euros and my daughter managed to eat a free ice cream for being cute. So what was bugging the hell out of me turned into a bunch of great new relationships with local folk. I went back and bought a few things from chandler no2 who I didn’t even know existed.

I also learned more about the boat so all up my broken windlass has been a positive experience.

Thanks for help
Mark