Official 1998 Sea Ray Sundancer 290 Thread

TommyD said:
Hi All -

Thinking about installing air conditioning in our 290. I had 3 questions;

1. What are the chances this thing is pre-ducted/plumbed for a/c (life would be good if we were that lucky).

2. Can any of you with factory installations tell me the locations of; the unit, the return, the output ducts?

3. What size unit did the factory install?

Thank you!
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Our 290 is the same year as yours and is equipped with factory AC. The main duct is to the starboard side on the bulkhead near the porthole window, the second duct is in the aft cabin and is pretty much directly behind the unit. I can look tonight, but I think my access panel is from the aft cabin. The intake grate and filter are just above the flip up stair where the shower sump is. You could probably check for ducting by removing the vanity in the head and see if it's back there

the control panel is on the port side in the vberth area right in front of the hanging locker.
 
Strecker25 appreciate the information, even if the ducting is not in place it is very helpful to know where the logical place to put things is.

Thanks again!
 
TommyD said:
Strecker25 appreciate the information, even if the ducting is not in place it is very helpful to know where the logical place to put things is.

Thanks again!
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No problem. Ill snap some pictures for you when I'm down there again, a good time to clean the filter anyways. Keep us posted on your decision, I read a lot about people adding AC/heat after the fact and i know it can get pricey...but certain climates just require it. Up where we are that's not the case ( a balmy high of 65 tomorrow)
 
Strecker25 - Pictures would be great! I was down at the boat today and took the access panel off in the aft cabin. There lies a perfect little space for the a/c unit right above the shower sump. The section for the return vent is actually pre-cut into the steps, just stapled into place and carpeted over. Ducting to the main cabin is not there, but I believe could be routed with a little grunting and cursing. If you could also take a pic of where they placed your through-hull for the water outlet that'd be great.

I haven't had the a/c for 3 years of owning the boat, but figured if I could do it on my own it may be a worthwhile investment....and I'd be less reluctant of planning nights down at the dock if I absolutely knew I could sleep comfortably.
 
Ill take a bunch this weekend. The though hull pickup, strainer, and pump are in the engine room and the thru hull discharge is right next to the head sink drain i believe.
 
So our hot water heater (new this year, was working fine) decided to quit heating. When i flip the switch I don't see the volts drop for a second and recover like they used to. Is there a separate water heater breaker from the electrical panel switch? I looked in the main panel where the battery switches are and do not see anything. I am getting 120v to the water heater switch behind the control panel, haven't had a chance to put a meter on the heater itself yet.

Weird that it just quit suddenly being so new. Wondering if you guys know anything else to check before I start pulling it apart. The macerator is mounted to the top and will be a pain to get it all taken out of the boat.

Edit: Opened up the front of the heater and found half the wires charred. There is a high temp switch that was also tripped. Only thing I can think of is the water level in the tank was low and didnt fill the heater enough so the element was dry fired. The wires were pressed against the metal components of the heater so must have melted them and ultimately tripped the switch. I replaced the wires and the unit seems to be heating properly now. I may just use shore water from now on instead of relying on the small onboard tank.
 
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TommyD said:
Strecker25 - Pictures would be great! I was down at the boat today and took the access panel off in the aft cabin. There lies a perfect little space for the a/c unit right above the shower sump. The section for the return vent is actually pre-cut into the steps, just stapled into place and carpeted over. Ducting to the main cabin is not there, but I believe could be routed with a little grunting and cursing. If you could also take a pic of where they placed your through-hull for the water outlet that'd be great.

I haven't had the a/c for 3 years of owning the boat, but figured if I could do it on my own it may be a worthwhile investment....and I'd be less reluctant of planning nights down at the dock if I absolutely knew I could sleep comfortably.
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Here are the photos.


















 
Thanks for taking the time to snap those photos Strecker25 - it is much appreciated! I'll keep you posted as to how it goes.
 
TommyD said:
Thanks for taking the time to snap those photos Strecker25 - it is much appreciated! I'll keep you posted as to how it goes.
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no problem. I look forward to hearing about it. Do you have a genset in your boat? We haven't slept on the hook and even though we have the gen i dont know that I would risk running it through the night, even with the CO detectors. Then again, we're in upstate NY where we barely ever need AC at night anyways.
 
I've never run my gen through the night and I doubt I ever would. I cool the cabin down with the AC and gen then switch to fans when we go to sleep. Open the hatches and port holes and you get a nice cross breeze.

The mid cabin is the problem. Open the window to the cockpit and have a fan blowing air in for the kids if needed. It's just not worth the CO risk to me.

I added some battery powered CO detectors from lowes as well.
 
So I havent had a chance to really go through the battery system to see what switch does what, but I know the top main switch turns off the DC side and I believe port engine while the bottom switch turns off the genset and stbd engine.

my practice has been just to shut down the bottom switch while on the hook leaving the DC side hot and theoretically a good battery to start one main and the genny if need be. Can anyone with a 3 battery setup confirm that? We're spending the entire day on the hook tomorrow and I don't want to run the gen if I don't have to so I figured I'll just shut down one side. I have to imagine searay engineered it so the bank that runs the DC side is also the tandem setup with the house battery hooked up.

Any battery knowledge you guys have is appreciated. thanks
 
From what I understand, two batteries are for the port engine, generator and house loads. The third battery is for the starboard engine alone. There are isolators built into the system that should prevent running down the third battery for starting the starboard engine even with all the switches on.

If you run down the house batteries, start the starboard engine, press the emergency start to combine the two banks and then start the port engine.

I had this happen to me last year and it didn't work the way I expected. I ran down the house bank overnight and had to actually move the good battery from the starboard engine to the generator bank, start the generator and run the battery charger. Once it was running I added the dead batteries back in. This was at the end of the season and the batteries were on their last legs. It was my fault for going out with questionable batteries.

Even with small group 24s that were just about done, I made it at least 12 hrs with fridge, lights, fans, radio... before I couldn't start an engine. If you have good batteries, you shouldn't have an issue.

I do carry a fairly comprehensive tool kit and jumper cables just in case now. It already got me home once.

I suppose another point of my rambling is that even with all the battery switches on all night, the isolators did their job and kept one battery charged for me.
 
I didn't know about the isolators, that's interesting. We periodically fire up the genny for some ac load anyways I just wanted to play it safe. Our radio supposedly also has a low voltage alarm but I would imagine by the time that sounds it's too low to crank a main over.

A set of cables and a jump box will be good peace of mind. Thanks! Enjoy the 4th
 
Not running down the house batteries will be a process of trial and error. I'm hoping that with 3 new group 27s I'll be alright overnight. 2 almost dead 24s were right on the boarder last year. The third battery isolated for the starboard engine "should" get you home.

Packing the car and headed out for three days right now. We'll see how it goes.

Happy 4th to you as well.
 
New batteries did the trick. At least 12 hours on the hook running the radio, TV, fridge, fan... And and old school double sided incandescent anchor light. Fired right up in the morning.
 
magstang1 said:
New batteries did the trick. At least 12 hours on the hook running the radio, TV, fridge, fan... And and old school double sided incandescent anchor light. Fired right up in the morning.
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Nice:thumbsup:

not sure if you saw my other thread in the gas engine section but we had a hell of a trip back in the pitch black saturday night. The hot lead to the starter pulled out of its crimp on the port engine causing way overvoltage. We ended up having to putt back at 7mph for almost 9 miles on the stbd motor. Easy enough fix after I contorted between the two motors but being on one main the first night cruise home was a bit nerve racking, especially on wide open lake Ontario.
 
so we need new canvas, probably next year, but I'm pricing things out. Our local guy who is very good quoted 1600 for the bimini, bimini valance, sunshade, and sunshade valance. It's extremely high quality work and he uses the seamark/sunbrella combo with the vinyl inside but I just thought that was pretty steep.

I can do the whole thing from RNR marine (sourced from Great Lakes) including all 5 glass pieces and the aft curtain for around 2300. We do have the full camper, But I like the aft curtain as we just flip it up over the arch when we're hanging at the dock and the camper would be big bucks to replace.

Has anyone used rnr/great lakes for a full replacement? I have to imagine doing the entire thing at once limits the oddities you might encounter when trying to match the old with the new.

any other suggestions are welcome as well, thanks!
 
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