Sea Fire Remote

dtfeld

Water Contrails
GOLD Sponsor
Jun 5, 2016
5,519
Milton, GA
Boat Info
410 Sundancer
2001
12" Axiom and 9" Axiom+ MFD
Engines
Cat 3126 V-Drives
On my punch list is dealing with the Sea Fire remote panel. Both Green and Red are illuminated, alarm is off. That is not supposed to happen.

Normal operation is switch in Normal, green light illuminated. I think the red light indicates a low pressure situation in the Halon bottle. Pressure gauge on the bottle itself reads in the green.

Do these remotes fail, or is it possible the pressure gauge on the bottle is faulty? Not sure of the circuit inside the remote, but I assume something fairly simple, and it may have failed "ON" in the low pressure circuit. Possible even a loose bad connection somewhere or the control board has failed.

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The pressure gauge on my sea fire bottle was in the green but when they inspected it the weight was at 50% off the specs. Not sure how that affects the lights but guess I'm recommending that you have the bottle inspected regardless of the lights. FYI the old system is not refillable because of the halon chemical. We had a new system installed
 
On my punch list is dealing with the Sea Fire remote panel. Both Green and Red are illuminated, alarm is off. That is not supposed to happen.

Normal operation is switch in Normal, green light illuminated. I think the red light indicates a low pressure situation in the Halon bottle. Pressure gauge on the bottle itself reads in the green.

Do these remotes fail, or is it possible the pressure gauge on the bottle is faulty? Not sure of the circuit inside the remote, but I assume something fairly simple, and it may have failed "ON" in the low pressure circuit. Possible even a loose bad connection somewhere or the control board has failed.

View attachment 80428

Funny, I just noticed my red and green lights are on as well??? I know this is something new that happened, i assumed that Something in the system failed and needed to be replaced, but haven’t done much research yet. My bottle in engine room is still indicating full.
 
Funny, I just noticed my red and green lights are on as well??? I know this is something new that happened, i assumed that Something in the system failed and needed to be replaced, but haven’t done much research yet. My bottle in engine room is still indicating full.
My comment would be if the bottle hasn't been inspected in a while you should probably have it checked. Mine was well in the green but they weighed it it indicated only 50% which means it failed.
 
I spoke with Sea Fire today. Tech indicated the control unit is what fails 90% of the time and the dash remote fails about 10% of the time. Also could be corroded wires. New unit is $350, and returnable if that's not it. He didn’t suspect the bottle pressure was off.
 
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On my 2003 optional halon system there was a visible gauge on the bottle and a pressure switch which was normally grounded but opened if the bottle's pressure was too low as a result of discharge or seepage over time. The wire from the bottle went directly to the gauge and the box. Both lights may be on because the boat quit operating after discharge or substantial seepage, and the override switch was thrown by the operator. Your override toggle switch is not weather protected as are the newer models and, in my book, can be expected to fail and should be replaced. There are mail order sources. My dash light indicated a discharged bottle although the gauge on the bottle was still barely in the green. Halon is good stuff and I would not replace it unless I had to. It's production is banned as bad for the ozone but its recapture and reuse is OK. In a boat lacking your box which cuts the engine upon discharge, the halon will be inhaled by the engine and converted to phosgene out your exhaust. The replacement for halon is expensive FM-200 which comes in a physically bigger bottle which will have to be rehung. I hope there is room.
Of course, do whatever Seafire tells you. I am surprised that the 1st thing was not to check the resistance to ground of the lead back to the bottle which should be less than an ohm.
 
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I finally got back to diagnosing this system. I have a written troubleshooting guide from Sea Fire (if anybody is having similar issues). This is basically checking the relay logic of the control box.

While mine is not operating as intended, we did determine that the issue is with how the blowers are wired into Sea Ray boats (specifically Sea rays). In my boat the blowers have this module. Anybody ever dealt with one? What does it do, How is it wired? I dont think this is detailed in my owners manual schematic...

Luckily they are available, but I'd like to understand what this does before spending $125 to see if it fixes the problem.

Blower Controller.PNG
 
I stand corrected...its in the manual...but what the hell does this thing do?? It might make sense as I'm having issues with one of my blowers dropping offline, and the switch light blinks until I reset the breaker...

Hmmm....


Capture.PNG
 
Looks like a simple set of 2 relays to be checked with your VOM. B+ at 4 from breakers, do you get juice at 5 or 6 when you throw switches at panel? If so, do the relays work energizing 1 or 3? Guessing, 7 ought to be wired to the normally grounded terminal on the Seafire box and not as shown. Upon discharge, you'd lose that ground and both blowers would shut down, as intended. Ground 7 with a jumper to bypass the Seafire box.
 
Somehow the power from this box is supposed to power the Sea Fire relay module.

Power is not being supplied from this box to the Sea Fire relay module..

I'll have to make a schematic up.
 
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Ground terminal 7 of blower control box with a jumper to bypass the Seafire box. Course I'm guessing.
Why don't you just check terminal 7 to ground with ohmeter/continuity?
Seafire box is powered by ignition switch and grounded by halon bottle. It then powers or grounds motors and blowers until halon bottle discharges.
 
Ground terminal 7 of blower control box with a jumper to bypass the Seafire box. Course I'm guessing.
Why don't you just check terminal 7 to ground with ohmeter/continuity?
Seafire box is powered by ignition switch and grounded by halon bottle. It then powers or grounds motors and blowers until halon bottle discharges.

I'll do this next time out and report back. My best recollection is there are 4 wires coming from this box to the Sea fire box. Wires from controller to pins 6 7 8 9 on the sea fire box.

20210204_113025.jpg


It be nice if I didn't have to my own schematic.
 
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The module is just a set of relays that are controlled by a low signal (pull to ground) from the switch panel.

that page is basic without the fire option goto page 60 in the book
upload_2021-2-5_20-12-43.png



400 - power in from blower breaker 1
401 - power in from blower breaker 2
402 - power out to blower 1 (interrupted by the seafire)
404 - power out to blower 2 (interrupted by the seafire)
406M - trigger for blowers, switches to ground to run blowers
407M - 12v+ to switch panel for blower indicator light
408M - ground to the switch panel

So the extinguisher panel has blocking diodes and can be powered off of either blower supply without back feeding the other blower circuit. When you turn on the blowers switch both pins 1 and 3 from the blower module should go hot 12+
And the power is passed thru to the blower motors.

So normal operation you can not start anything unless the blowers are running right?
 
This doesn't completely make sense, I think this blower module will check out fine.
I have a seafire, it has a diode bridge set inside to allow power from any source, port, stb, gen, to provide 12v power
going to PM you I have a PDF manual for that with internal schematics

upload_2021-2-5_20-45-47.png
 
attached here
 

Attachments

  • Halon Wiring-ESRS Mark V SR Installation Manual.pdf
    1.3 MB · Views: 243
Thanks...I. going to have to marry the Se Fire schematic up with the blower control...then figure out what is working, what is not.

Keep in mind, this started with both lights on the over ride illuminated and has mushroomed ... im beginning to think there is something wrong in the override switch.

Sea Fire Tech stumped as well.
 
Do the blowers and engines run with the switch in the normal position?
And the only real issue is the red light is on?
If so it has to be the sonic alert board
Its what lets positive voltage to the red led
If the bottle was low and the pressure switch tripped the light and horn would be going
 
I stand corrected...its in the manual...but what the hell does this thing do?? It might make sense as I'm having issues with one of my blowers dropping offline, and the switch light blinks until I reset the breaker...

Hmmm....


View attachment 98965
David - that blower module provides dual engine room blowers to be powered and protected by separate battery banks yet be turned on and off from a single switch or the SeaFire module for a fire suppressant discharge. I think you will notice that the blower circuit breakers (one for each blower) are on separate batteries. You need that module and that module has nothing to do with that Red LED being illuminated.
When a Halon or suppressant is discharged the pressure switch on the bottle de-energizes the relays inside of that relay box, turns the Red LED on at the bypass/alarm at the helm and shuts down the engines, blowers, and generator so the fire suppressant remains in the engine room (not extracted overboard or through the engine air intakes). The switch on the helm module simply bypasses the pressure switch and re-energizes the relays so the boat can be operated. The only thing I can think of is the buzzer has shorted and failed on the helm module which is causing the red LED to light up. I noticed the cotton sound muffler is missing from the buzzer....

Let's check a few boxes -
Your engines, blowers, and generator operate normally - that means the relay box is correctly configured and operating.
Your Halon bottle pressure is in the green (that doesn't mean the bottle is full only that it has enough pressure to keep the pressure switch closed) so that is keeping the relays closed and consequently the boat operates.
The Green LED is on which means the relay box is energized and relays closed.
All is normal except the Red LED.
If you simply disconnect the wire connector at the Halon bottle does the alarm sound on the helm and the boats engines, generator, and blowers shut down? They should.
Then when you move the switch to "Bypass" does the engines, generator, and blowers now start and operate and alarm terminate? They should.
If all that still works but the buzzer doesn't I suspect only that module at the helm is defective.
 
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@ttmott and @hughespat57 I appreciate the schematic. That will help!!

Its a Little more complicated. As I trouble shot the LED, I'm finding other issues.

The initial symptom I was looking at was the "Discharged" LED illuminated when it shouldn't be (bottle pressure and pressure switch are functional). The horn is not working either, so possibly an issue with the remote panel. The other symptom is my port blower works intermittantly...it will run for a couple minutes then blow the breaker. Then helm blower switch blinks on/off until I reset the breaker in the ER (this is part of the Blower Control module function).

Sea Fire thinks the issue is in the engine shut down module. I have a trouble shooting guide from Sea Fire looking at the relay function (similar to what Ttmott described above) but looking at individual relay function as follows. The issue is that the Blower relays were not functioning correctly in Normal or Override. I verified that the Relays were functioning by applying 12VDC to Pins 6 & 8 and the relays cycled. This means the relays were not getting power from the Blower Module (or possibly upstream of that module).

I have to go back and start tracing wires back from the shutdown module to the Blower module and see whats going on there.


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