Quick windlass blows circuit breaker

[julians]

So ,went down to the boat this morning and the windlass worked perfectly first time,no sticking.

Last night it was left with the anchor stowed ,chain tight ,the same as every other day. So maybe just taking it apart and putting back together fixed it?

It has stuck every day so far this week apart from today.

Sods law really, as I have been in touch with quick and they wanted a video of the issue so they could troubleshoot it...

 

[bobgarrett]

Reading through this thread I had wondered whether you were holding the anchor stored with the windlass. I was always told that was not wise - just like the windlass should not hold it when deployed. You have perhaps confirmed this. Maybe you should leave the chain slack and not wind it in tight to start with?

 

[julians]

Reading through this thread I had wondered whether you were holding the anchor stored with the windlass. I was always told that was not wise - just like the windlass should not hold it when deployed. You have perhaps confirmed this. Maybe you should leave the chain slack and not wind it in tight to start with?

I do store the anchor with the windlass holding the chain tight,I did consider whether this could be causing the problem,but have always done it like this on all my previous boats with no problems, but I guess it's not best practice though, in the same way that your not supposed to use the windlass to hold the boat on the anchor,but everyone does....

The anchor roller does have provision to clamp the anchor in place so the chain does not need to hold it,but If I didn't store it with the chain tight then the slightly loose chain would slap about so I'd have to find a way of tying the loose bit of chain down so it didn't bang around when under way.

 

[Hurricane]

I can only speak for Lewmar windlasses but I have had problems with the gearboxes.
Even took one apart once.
Maybe you have a portion of one of the gears that "gets stuck".
That can easily happen with the way the Lewmar one works.
My problem was that I stripped the gears in one portion of the big gear that is on the vertical shaft.
Most of the time it worked and would even "jump" the stripped portion of the gear.
But if it stopped at the stripped portion of the gear, it wouldn't go in either direction.
Bit obvious though because it made a horrific noise.
My circuit breakers didn't trip.
The only solution for me was a new gearbox and they aren't cheap.
I have now upgraded My windlass to the next Lewmar model up and kept the old one as a backup but even the upgrade process wasn't straight forward.

 

[julians]

The windlass was fine again today, I can't imagine that just disassembling the main components fixed anything,but will keep an eye on it.

 

[JAH]

Re-reading the clues in the original post, my money is on Porto's & Vas' idea - a motor issue. Commutator or brushes or windings - hard to tell on available evidence. As Vas said, first easy step is to remove and inspect the brushes. There are still specialist industrial motor rewind shops around who can test it under load and sort it if necessary, without the 'marine' price premium. A bad commutator can skimmed and the slots re-cut, and the rotor can be rewound - both are routine operations.

Checking all the volts around the system before each first use would also give useful clues to help pinpoint the problem, and absolve the 'not guilty' bits. If none of those gets you the answer, then checking the gears for missing teeth (as Hurricane has suggested) would be my next port of call.

 

[vas]

Re-reading the clues in the original post, my money is on Vas' idea - a motor issue. Commutator or brushes or windings - hard to tell on available evidence. As Vas said, first easy step is to remove and inspect the brushes. There are still specialist industrial motor rewind shops around who can test it and sort it if necessary, without the 'marine' price premium.

Checking all the volts around the system before each first use would also give useful clues to help pinpoint the problem. If none of those gets you the answer, then checking the gears for missing teeth (as another poster has suggested) would be my next port of call.

JAH, that's a Lakesailor! I was just recapping various ideas, and that iirc originally came from Porto
if you're new and not familiar with what Lakesailor means, I'm sure someone will come up with a link to the definition (in simple terms it means thanking not the originator of a comment/idea/whatever but someone who later on repeated it...)

cheers

V.

 

[Portofino]

Too much lost youth trying to get scalelectric and Hornby train set motors to run / repair I am afraid .They would do exactly the same until I cleaned up the commutator and brushes of grime .Also tensioned the brush springs .

Nothing worse at the start of a race …..” ready steady GO “ and yours doesn’t move .It did ok in free practice etc .

 

[julians]

So, it's all still working fine ,that's now 3 days in a row of no faults, coming off the back of it sticking every day for the previous week,with the only difference being that I took the gypsy off and disassembled the motor and gear box from the main axle.

Will keep and eye on it for the next few days and go from there.