Just a note to share my "duh" moment. Admiral, granddaughter and I headed out for a few day cruise around the SanJuan Islands. Noticed upon boarding that the Link-1000, that has worked flawlessly all these years, had no display, but did have the volt and charge light on. Maybe a power reset might wake it up. Nope. Re-connected power, but then nothing, no lights, display, zip, nada.
No big deal, so we did our cruise and upon returning decided to check whether it was getting power. Placed the trusty Fluke test leads on the white and black (actually dark purple) contact points, which showed 12.65 volts. Hmm. Maybe it just got tired and decided to give up the ship, so to speak. Since most of my wiring experience has been with residential, I thought I got the right reading.
Got back home and did some online searching for a manufacture discontinued product. Lo and behold Craigs List had
a fellow in a nearby town with one for sale. Talk about lucky. Drove out to his place, purchased it and drove to the boat today to install it. Got it all hooked up and...nothing. Dead! Did he sell be a bill of goods? Again my trusty Fluke displayed 12.65 volts, so it appeared the unit was getting power. Maybe I'm missing something, so time to open up the manual and check everything out. Opened the manual to the wiring page and what to my surprise, the red wire is positive, not black. Sheesh! I've done quite of bit of wiring on the boat over the years, but it seems my default went to black positive based on my residential experience.
This time I placed the Fluke probes on the red (positive) and black (negative) leads and it displayed 00.00 volts. Time for some basic trouble shooting. Opened up the upper battery bank cover in order to check the connection and fuse, and lo and behold, the 2 amp fuse, where I had installed it several years ago per spec, was dead. Replaced with a spare good fuse and wah la, the Link-1000 came to life. Not sure why the fuse broke, but that I will keep an eye on. Now I have a spare Link-1000 that likely still works, although I did not hook it back up. That, as they say, is for another day.
No big deal, so we did our cruise and upon returning decided to check whether it was getting power. Placed the trusty Fluke test leads on the white and black (actually dark purple) contact points, which showed 12.65 volts. Hmm. Maybe it just got tired and decided to give up the ship, so to speak. Since most of my wiring experience has been with residential, I thought I got the right reading.
Got back home and did some online searching for a manufacture discontinued product. Lo and behold Craigs List had
a fellow in a nearby town with one for sale. Talk about lucky. Drove out to his place, purchased it and drove to the boat today to install it. Got it all hooked up and...nothing. Dead! Did he sell be a bill of goods? Again my trusty Fluke displayed 12.65 volts, so it appeared the unit was getting power. Maybe I'm missing something, so time to open up the manual and check everything out. Opened the manual to the wiring page and what to my surprise, the red wire is positive, not black. Sheesh! I've done quite of bit of wiring on the boat over the years, but it seems my default went to black positive based on my residential experience.
This time I placed the Fluke probes on the red (positive) and black (negative) leads and it displayed 00.00 volts. Time for some basic trouble shooting. Opened up the upper battery bank cover in order to check the connection and fuse, and lo and behold, the 2 amp fuse, where I had installed it several years ago per spec, was dead. Replaced with a spare good fuse and wah la, the Link-1000 came to life. Not sure why the fuse broke, but that I will keep an eye on. Now I have a spare Link-1000 that likely still works, although I did not hook it back up. That, as they say, is for another day.
