accessory switch issues! need help!

[jdbakerucf]

ok, so I am by no means an electrical guru (probably why I'm in this situation), and I'm hoping I can provide enough info that someone might be able to help me out.

So, I have a FSH210, and my accessory switch has become intermittent and I'm not sure why (bot starts and runs fine). When I leave the battery on the trickle charger all night I can come out and turn on the house battery and my switches will work temporarily but as soon as there is too much of a draw on them everything starts to go sideways. For example, I can power up the boat and turn on my Simrad GO9 (it is powered by one of the accessory switches), however while that is powered up if I hit my horn the screen will turn off and the Simrad will restart.

Furthermore, I have trim tabs on the other accessory switch, and when I try to turn those on they will just continually cycle on (like they keep resetting over and over) and it will reset my Simrad as well.

So, it seems like any sort of power draw on any of the accessories is causing them all to go a little crazy, and I'm not sure why. creating too much of a voltage drop maybe?

So, everything was working fine and without issue until I installed an aftermarket amp and speakers. the amp is hooked up to the house battery via a direct 4 awg cable for both the power and ground. the remote wire is coming directly from the stereo, and all of this stuff works fine.

Anyone have any ideas or places for me to start looking? I have tried putting a battery charger on the house battery, I have double/triple checked all of my wiring/connection, and I have checked all of the fuses I can find. I ahve not tried to tear apart the factory wire loom yet to see if there is an issue with the factory wiring, but I'm not sure what else to check. Is there a bus bar or something that all of the accessory wires go to that I can't see? looks like there is a relay tied into the factory harness up by the accessory switches (on the back side of the helm), but I'm not sure if that is for the accessory switch or not.

any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

First thing I’d check is the connections on the BEP battery switch….

 

[jdbakerucf]

First thing I’d check is the connections on the BEP battery switch….

thank you for the input...
So I pulled those switches off of the wall and removed the back and re-tightened all of those connections. I have some things tied into the house switch that work and some that don't so I don't think it is the switch or I wouldn't have any of those things working (thinking it's down line from the house switch or a ground issue, but I don't really know how to troubleshoot any of that).

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Okay.

Your accessory switches have a feed going to them, this feed wire is then daisy chained along the row of switches for the source of power to each switch. As you know each rocker switch has its own circuit breaker. The feed that goes to the accessory switches I believe goes through the 30A main fuse for the battery. From there it goes to the molex plug A and to deck harness EP1 or ES1.



From there I’m not sure where it goes as the single line diagrams leave a bit to be desired.



Remove the curtain that covers the electronics in the CC stowage area, look up at your accessory switches and find the feed for the switches coming from the deck harness, then check all of the rest. I’m betting that you will find a loose wire on the back side there. Hopefully it is just a connection that was inadvertently pulled loose, or maybe even one of those molex plugs.

Hope this helps..

 

[jdbakerucf]

ok... so all wiring I can see "looks" good and the connections look good as well. So, what I did was take a jumper wire from the positive battery terminal and attach it to the inline fuse where the power is coming from the boat at in an attempt to bypass that factory power wire. When I did that I got nothing, so next I did the same thing with the ground wire and grounded the switch directly to the battery. the result from that is that the switch would actually light up when I turned it on, however the accessory that it was powering would not start up (tried it on the bilge pump circuit).

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

ok... so all wiring I can see "looks" good and the connections look good as well. So, what I did was take a jumper wire from the positive battery terminal and attach it to the inline fuse where the power is coming from the boat at in an attempt to bypass that factory power wire. When I did that I got nothing, so next I did the same thing with the ground wire and grounded the switch directly to the battery. the result from that is that the switch would actually light up when I turned it on, however the accessory that it was powering would not start up (tried it on the bilge pump circuit).

Right on… so you have determined that the grounding is the issue. I believe each rocker switch has a ground that is common like the positive. Go through and wiggle tug on each wire to see if something is loose or pulls out of the connector. Looks like they all terminate at 12 on the plug.

 

[jdbakerucf]

so, if the ground to the accessory switches is the problem, once I jump that shouldn't the accessory power on? right now all I am getting is the light on the switch to power on, but not the actual accessory.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

so, if the ground to the accessory switches is the problem, once I jump that shouldn't the accessory power on? right now all I am getting is the light on the switch to power on, but not the actual accessory.

The the ground on the switch is just for the back light, and the accessory has it’s own ground and when the switch is thrown the rocker switch just supplies positive.

The fact that all devices are affected when you start having problems points to a common wiring problem.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

ok... so all wiring I can see "looks" good and the connections look good as well. So, what I did was take a jumper wire from the positive battery terminal and attach it to the inline fuse where the power is coming from the boat at in an attempt to bypass that factory power wire. When I did that I got nothing, so next I did the same thing with the ground wire and grounded the switch directly to the battery. the result from that is that the switch would actually light up when I turned it on, however the accessory that it was powering would not start up (tried it on the bilge pump circuit).

What fuse are you talking about? Is that fuse good? Perhaps it is the fuse holder itself?

 

[jdbakerucf]

ok... so I think I found the culprit! the connector that all of the wires goes through is pretty corroded (looked good from outside, but once I pulled it apart I noticed that the power wire pin was completely corroded off and several others had quite a bit of corrosion... so, does anyone know what kind of pins I need to buy to replace these (male and female ends)?

 

[jdbakerucf]

ok, so I ordered a new 12 pin connector and all the pins. Should be here tomorrow so I will provide a status back once I get the connector repaired.

 

[jdbakerucf]

Problem solved... I removed the old connector and replaced all of the corroded pins with new ones and installed everything in the new connector and all of my accessories are back and functioning as they should! the wiring diagram above really helped me trace everything so thanks for providing those pictures @FSH 210 Sport

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Problem solved... I removed the old connector and replaced all of the corroded pins with new ones and installed everything in the new connector and all of my accessories are back and functioning as they should! the wiring diagram above really helped me trace everything so thanks for providing those pictures @FSH 210 Sport

Happy Days! I’m glad you found and solved the problem!!!!!!

May not be a bad idea to pack all of those pins, male and female, with dielectric grease so that no water can get in there in the future.

Where was that big grey plug ?

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

ok... so I think I found the culprit! the connector that all of the wires goes through is pretty corroded (looked good from outside, but once I pulled it apart I noticed that the power wire pin was completely corroded off and several others had quite a bit of corrosion... so, does anyone know what kind of pins I need to buy to replace these (male and female ends)? View attachment 153447View attachment 153449View attachment 153448

Sorry I did not respond sooner.. was out boating the past several days. And now that you have everything sorted you will be out boating a lot as well!

Kudos to you for digging deep and finding the problem!

 

[jdbakerucf]

Happy Days! I’m glad you found and solved the problem!!!!!!

May not be a bad idea to pack all of those pins, male and female, with dielectric grease so that no water can get in there in the future.

Where was that big grey plug ?

that big grey plug was under the helm in the main wiring harness for the instrument panel right underneath the all the accessory switches. the plug itself if right next to the "air vent" in the side of the helm which makes me think it got splashed with water and is what led to the corrosion.... And definitely added some dielectric grease in there to prevent this in the future.

now, this just makes me curious/scared to know if there are other connectors on the boat that are in similar condition that I just haven't had an issue with yet.

 

[fatboyroy]

Glad you found the problem, I'm buying dielectric grease later today and pull all my connectors before it gets corroded

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

that big grey plug was under the helm in the main wiring harness for the instrument panel right underneath the all the accessory switches. the plug itself if right next to the "air vent" in the side of the helm which makes me think it got splashed with water and is what led to the corrosion.... And definitely added some dielectric grease in there to prevent this in the future.

now, this just makes me curious/scared to know if there are other connectors on the boat that are in similar condition that I just haven't had an issue with yet.

Right on…. Thanks for the info on the switch location.

Well, when you want to go out and putter on your boat just start taking the plugs apart one at a time, clean them and pack them with dielectric grease. Good for freshwater, and I’d thing a must for salt water. The main thing is that you are back up and running aNd you will not have problems with that in future!