Power to shower sump

[searaycruisn]

First, a little history.

The boat is a 2000 380 Sundancer. I recently had a Sea Ray technician come down to the boat to install a new breaker in the engine room panel. The new breaker is for a cockpit refrigerator which I installed instead of the cockpit ice maker. The new breaker, is right above the shower sump breaker. Now, back to the sump.

This weekend, the shower sump would not go on. I cut back the insulation on the three wires coming out of the wiring harness that ultimately are wired to the shower sump and float switch. I tested the main hot lead with a voltmeter, by touching the hot lead, and the black ground...and found no power. Next, I tried to touch the red lead of the voltmeter to both of the hot leads coming out of the wiring harness and the black voltmeter lead to the ground wire, and again, no power. Lastly, I had a new pump with me, and touched the wires of the new pump to the wires coming out of the wiring harness, and the new pump did not run.

I am fairly certain that I have no power going to the shower sump.

I opened up the breaker panel in the engine room. There is no wire going to the battery side of the breaker. I can see the wire on the other side of the breaker, which is going to the sump pump. The breakers in the panel in that area, have a bus (a metal or brass bar) which is jumping between 4 of the breakers (including the sump and the refrigerator breaker). The sump breaker however, is the only one without a wire going to it from the battery side.

Do you think the technician "borrowed" the power lead from the sump breaker and used it for the refrigerator, and never reconnected the shower sump? Does a breaker that is "jumped" with other breakers using a bus, also need its own power source, or is it getting juice through the bus? Why are there three wires coming out of the harness which goes to the sump pump? Is the third wire for the light in the head which indicates that the pump is on?

 

[boatmailster]

third wire is for indicator light

on some boats without air conditioners drains connected to shower sump pump itself is powered from "water system" breaker

 

[searaycruisn]

Update....

Turns out that the breaker was tripped, even though it looked like it was in the untripped position. Turned the breaker off, then back on, and power was restored.

 

[xravenx]

searaycruisn,

Glad you got the shower sump worked out..................kind of on topic, in your first post you mentioned that you replaced your cockpit ice maker with a refrigerator. A couple questions, did you do a dual voltage fridge, if so did you do a seperate circuit for the 12 volts or tie it in with the galley fridge. Was it a direct fit or was there some trimming invloved. Finally, what make and model did you go with. When my ice maker stopped making ice, I installed a different type of thermostat and converted it to a refrigerator, it doesn't have much storage and i really want to do it right :thumbsup:

John

 

[searaycruisn]

I did buy a dual circuit refrigerator. I had a marine electrician do the wiring. He installed an additional breaker in the main panel in the engine room for the 12V. He did not piggy back with the galley fridge.

I spent some time measuring and buying a unit that required me to enlarge the hole that the ice maker came out of. I had to cut out about 2" from each side of the hole cavity. The refrigerator is not as tall as the ice maker, so what I did was to mount two 2X4 strips of pressure treated wood under where the legs of the refrigerator are, in order to lift the refrigerator up to the top of the mounting hole cavity. The 380 sundancer has a closet type door in front of the ice maker, so you cannot see the refrigerator under normal conditions, unless you open the door to get to the refrigerator. In any case, it is a nice, clean install with the refrigerator sized as this one is.

I installed a Waeco refrigerator I believe it is a model CR50. I can verify that for you if you need the exact model.

 

[xravenx]

Thanks for the info, I'm, definetly doing this project, it's in the infant stages right now..........thanks again.

John