Flickering House Lights
- Thread starter HMT2
- Start date
Analog will definitely pick up more than a digital but will still miss many events that will make the led flicker... They're faster but still slow... A large but short dip will look like a tiny fluctuation... If nothing more reasonable works you might need to borrow agood oscilloscope to really see it... Old burglar alarm installers might still have a device they used to detect short breaks in the foil they lined windows with
I just started following this thread as my cabin lights are LED and have been for quite some time now. I went to the Phillipines for 6 months and was off the boat. I had friends checking on it as we had quite a bit of rain here in Calif. Upon my return I fired up the cabin lights and some of them flickered a bit or were dim. Then they went off completely. I have 5 cabin lights and only 3 were affected. Then all of sudden they all started working fine and then a few minutes later 3 of them went off completely. I checked the bulbs in the other working fixtures and they were good. All connections behind the dome fixtures look fine. Not sure where to start... Any ideas???
Are they parallel connected, series connected? If so are the three bad lights near the end of the wiring run and the two good ones at the beginning? Maybe bad/loose connection somewhere in the string?
A common practice, which does not imply a good practice, by boat builders is to stick more than one wire in a connector. For lighting runs there would be a butt connector with a pig tail for the light coming out of one side. And few, if any, builders take the time and effort to use heat sealed connectors. Check the connectors for corrosion or failing connections.
Yes I would think so as well. It would be hard to say though until the wiring for all the lights was examined from beginning to end to confirm how it was wired. If wired in parallel, its possible for the three flickering lights to be at the beginning of the string if they are all on the same wiring run. Another possibility is just a weak battery bank. This would be easy to confirm just by charging it full and while full and the charger is on, do they still flicker?
Before i switched to lithium house bank, i had a weak and dying lead acid house battery. When the voltage started dropping near the lower end of the range the lights could handle, three of them near the end of the string (parallel connected) would flicker and slightly dim. When the battery was full or the charger was on they were perfectly fine though. Since i have switched to lithium, havn't seen them flicker since.
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Hi all just and update. The cabin lights are in parallel. Used just a little common sense and followed where the last light was working and the next one was not. lights on in the head and failed in the V-Berth. So I just manually wired the head light to the port V-Berth light. Wires outside the head just to see if it worked. By passing original contact between head light and V-Berth light. All lit up!!!! Now to find an aesthetic way to wire them together. Thanks for all your help 
jssailem
SBO Weather and Forecasting Forum Jim & John
- Oct 22, 2014
- 23,098
Pete. Did you find any corrosion on the connections at either the head or the V-Berth? I would suspect the moisture in the head could have caused corrosion on the contacts in the head or a poor wire crimp on a fastener. Clean the contacts, spray a little "Corrosion Block" on the contacts, and then test. A lower possibility would be a pinch or a cut in the wire. Sometimes caused by a screw penetrating the wire or chafe where the wire has moved frequently over a sharp edge.
If you find the wire showing corrosion on the strands, just clip off 1/4 inch. Upon finding fresh wire, crimp on a connector and put the lights back together.
If you find the wire showing corrosion on the strands, just clip off 1/4 inch. Upon finding fresh wire, crimp on a connector and put the lights back together.
Hi all just and update. The cabin lights are in series. Used just a little common sense and followed where the last light was working and the next one was not. lights on in the head and failed in the V-Berth. So I just manually wired the head light to the port V-Berth light. Wires outside the head just to see if it worked. By passing original contact between head light and V-Berth light. All lit up!!!! Now to find an aesthetic way to wire them together. Thanks for all your help
YES - Corrosion was on light in the head---- It seems that it fried the wires between the head and V-Berth. Catalina seems to have buried wiring in the deck so it is not accessible and it appears glued in as you can't fish wire either.....
Yeah thats really messed up when they do crap like that. I have found a few Friday at 5:00 construction modifications on my boat as well.
Probably glued so it wouldn’t rattle while underway. Still annoying for repairs though.
My guess, the wires were installed on the headliner and glued down to cut production costs. Much faster and cheaper than using conduits or having wires slide around when installing the headliner and deck. The glue (probably thickened polyester resin serves a double duty helping to connect the deck and headliner to add strength to the cabin top.