Lewmar bowthruster joystick problem. Advice please.

[Oscarpop]

We have a lewmar 185tt bowthruster with a joystick at the helm.
It has an on /off button and then the port and starboard joystick bit.
Normally you hold the on button for a second and the lights come on.
Today the lights were on and stayed on. No switching off after 10 minutes of inactivity, and I can't turn the unit off with the button either.
The bowthruster works fine, just the unit is always "live"
Any ideas why? Just a fault with the unit or button?
And I guess it's not something I can fix here.

Second question is it safe to leave the unit live like this? I figure that there will be some current draw for the leds, and the danger of accidentally knocking it, but not a lot more.
Cheers

 

[Ian_Edwards]

I have a Lewmar 185TT bow thruster with the push button version of the controller, but I guess that the internal electronics are identical. That's assuming that the joystick just switches the thruster motor on and off, and isn't a variable speed controller.

These are notoriously unreliable. They are potted in some form of epoxy, as far as I can see they aren't repairable, even by Lewmar. They just want to sell you a new one.

I did hear a rumour a while ago that Lewmar are producing a more reliable unit, but my current unit is still working, it's just about a year old now, that's the 3rd unit in 5 years, so I haven't researched that.

Installing a new one is very easy, it's just 4 wires and a couple of nuts to undo, the biggest problem on my boat is accessing the inside of the steering pedestal, which involves taking of ceiling panels in the starboard aft cabin.

The current draw for the unit in standby (light on) is small, so I wouldn't worry about that. The control box is designed to switch itself off after 20min, and to protect the motor from being reversed too quickly, and to stop the motor from being continuously operated for 3 min or more. If it's not switching itself off, then the other function may not work, so I'd be careful when operating it, in addition to the obvious danger of someone accidentally operating the thruster.

 

[pvb]

Second question is it safe to leave the unit live like this? I figure that there will be some current draw for the leds, and the danger of accidentally knocking it, but not a lot more.

Presumably you have a master isolator switch on the bowthruster power supply, so you could always turn that off when you're not likely to need to use it.

 

[DownWest]

Dunno if this is similar to the Vetus control but I looked at one that was mulfunctioning and the on/off switch was iffy(the one with the light) Vetus said it was very reliable and not the cause, but a replacement from an online place sorted the problem.