Troubleshooting weird (I think) macerator issue

Tricky

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Jun 30, 2016
5
Santana 30 Redwood City
I have a macerator hooked up to my gray water tank, and up until last week it worked, no problems. Last week however, I noticed the macerator wasn't coming on like it normally does. In the gray water tank is a standard bilge float switch that activates when the tank starts getting full. There is also a manual switch I can use. The manual switch works great (thankfully!). So I'm thinking float switch. I tried manually lifting the switch, nothing. I jumped the connection, by-passing the switch, still nothing. Ok, float switch is not the (only) problem. I put the multimeter on the connection, 13.ishV, but no love.

I'm pretty nooby with electrics, but if you give a pump 12V and ground it should run, no?

Looking forward to any suggestions!!
 
May 20, 2016
3,014
Catalina 36 MK1 94 Everett, WA
No - well maybe mostly - it indicates a high resistance point somewhere along the line and it won't flow enough current to run the pump. follow your wires thru the switch to the pump and look for bad connections.
Les
 
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Tricky

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Jun 30, 2016
5
Santana 30 Redwood City
Thanks LeslieTroyer! I had a feeling I would probably need to do that, at least I know it's where the problem is!!
 

MitchM

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Jan 20, 2005
1,009
Nauticat 321 pilothouse 32 Erie PA
look at your macerator and you will see a metal slot where you can insert a straight blade screw driver and rotate the slot back and forth . turn the slot back and forth a few times and you may clear any thing that possibly is clogging the macerator and keeping it from functioning. also check your 12 v hot supply into the macerator , are you getting 12.6+ volts? .
 

Tricky

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Jun 30, 2016
5
Santana 30 Redwood City
Thanks MitchM. That's great to know! I'm going back in later today!
 
May 20, 2016
3,014
Catalina 36 MK1 94 Everett, WA
Since your pump works on Manual - I doubt it is jammed when power comes from the float switch.
 
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