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Fixing Things in Exotic Places
On May 14, 12:02*pm, wrote:
On Sunday, May 12, 2013 3:52:22 PM UTC-4, Tim wrote: On May 12, 2:32*pm, " * Sir Gregory Hall, Esq·" åke wrote: "Wayne B" wrote in message .. . It has been said that the definition of cruising in a boat is "fixing things in exotic places". *Unfortunately there is some truth to that, and it's also true that necessity is the mother of invention, or in my case, motivation. * The circulating fan in our aft cabin (where we sleep) air conditioner has been inoperable for a while. * It hasn't been a big deal since we've mostly been anchored out in a good breeze, and with mostly comfortable temperatures. * Today however we're docked in Roadtown, Tortola (in the British Virgin Islands), the breeze has abated, and temperatures have crept up into the mid to upper 80s. It was time to do something. There are no doubt professional A/C service people here in the BVI but finding someone competent and reliable would be challenging enough during the week and impossible on the weekend. *Out came all of my amateur mechanic tools, trouble lights and test equipment. * With some poking around, testing and inspection it was determined that the circuit breaker was supplying power and that the local fuse was OK. The connections behind the control panel seemed OK and nothing in the wiring harness was obviously amiss. * What next? * I popped off the cover to the junction box between the panel controls and the condensing unit. * Once again voltages seemed normal and there were no obvious signs of electrical issues. * Then I started tracing out the wiring harness back to the control panel and noticed that there was a big multi-block connector sitting in the middle. *Sure enough, the connectors did not look firmly seated. * I used a big pair of channel lock pliers to squeeze the connectors together, turned the switch on, and voila the whole A/C unit came to life. Mission accomplished. It's more often than not that bad connections are the reason. Boats seem to foster bad connections. Seems to me solder is the only real reliable way to go when joining wires. My refrigerator has been doing a great job of almost freezing my beer since I re-crimped the stupid spade connectors at the connector block. Prior to that it would "lose its way" and stop cycling on. -- Sir Gregory though some here have disputed the practice, I still say that solderless crimp connections always work best with a drop of solder on/ in them. I'm a solder fan myself. *Everything else seems to slowly deteriorate on a boat. *I was only getting about 8 volts at my dash and walking back with the meter gave me an additional volt or so each time I got one connector closer to the battery. agreed. BTW, Good to see you, man. |
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