Lewmar electric winch

[NYSail]

so the new boat has an electric winch.... lewmar 44. When I bought the boat it was said that it was only the switch that was bad.... no big deal. So got a new switch and replaced and no go..... still not working. Checked the motor by jumping the wires and motor runs fine, however no power through the control box. I took it apart and all connections are good. So do these control boxes go bad? And pardon the ignorance but why a control box? Unit is not a variable
Speed.... one speed one direction only.

Thanks

 

[Rich Stidger]

I have a similar, but different, control box on my Lewmar OP2 electric winch that I installed in 1998. I believe that the control box has two functions. First it will switch high current to the motor- your control switch is not capable of that amount of current. Second, I think it monitors the current to the motor and will shut it down if the motor load is too high. It is essentially a smart circuit breaker.
My winch quit running this summer and I traced the problem to loose connections on the control box. I have no idea how they became loose, but after tightening the winch is running fine. Since you have removed the motor wires to connect to 12V to test the motor, I would think that if there were any loose wires you would have seen them. So I can't help with any ideas on the failure mode. Lewmar will probably want huge bucks to replace, so if it comes to that I would pull out the control box and do a visual exam of the inside and look for anything that looks burnt or damaged.

 

[DayDreamer41]

Is the black wire on the right hand terminal ground?
Perhaps a hand drawn wire diagram would help us help you

 

[NYSail]

1 red hot
1 red to winch motor
1 black common
1 black common to winch motor

All connections good

 

[SG]

The control box also reverses the motor (switches the neutral and ground) so that your 44 can function as a two-speed winch.

 

[DayDreamer41]

The wiring diagrams I have seen don't bring the bat neg to the control ergo the question, you are certain it is wired correctly and yet it doesn't work with control, which would indicated to me that there is a wiring error.

 

[SG]

That's for a winch where you don't want it to downshift automatically as it hits a certain load situation.

We have large three-speed Lewmar Primary winches. These are 1998 installed winches with Lewmar control boxes.

The control box in-question was set-up for the Lewmar 44's that you have and presumably worked.

When you say you "Checked the motor by jumping the wires and motor runs fine, however no power through the control box." does that mean you jumped the switch or just the output to the winch? If you jump the switch, what happens?

You should treat it's innards are a "black box". I'd call Lewmar and discuss the issue with their tech service guys.

 

[DayDreamer41]

I am wondering if you don't have the thermal cutout wired from the motor to the controller, would one have to jump or add a resistor across terminals 4 to 5

 

[SG]

The thermal resistors reset -- or there was one that really got hit by a hard short. There is a sometime separate switch somewhere for the winch control box. It doesn't do anything but provide a switch that deactivates the touch switch on the deck (i.e., it doesn't disconnect the batteries).

You might ask the P.O. about that (if he was the original owner or if he has any other thoughts).

 

[DayDreamer41]

Yes thermal resistors reset, but in the photograph there is no other wiring shown but the power side of the circuit, if the OP has not wired a motor overload to the controller, the controller may be looking for continuity through terminals 4 & 5 in order to complete the power circuit.

 

[NYSail]

Thanks everyone for the advise..... when I get to the boat I am going to check installation diagram and compare to what I have...... inside and outside of box. I assumed the unit was wired correctly as P/o said it had worked but he assumed a bad switch when it failed. I will re contact him and ask history of unit..... again thanks all!