Tripped Windlass Breaker and Battery Voltage

[Rob Karov]

Sailors,

We had an unusual experience yesterday. The boat was hard to start while on shore power. When underway and engine off, I noticed battery 1 was at 8 volts, so switched to the second battery which was at a little over 12 volts.

Then, found a tripped windlass breaker and upon flipping it, the original battery went right up to 12 volts - all while no motor was running and without being on shore power.

I never imagined a tripped breaker can impact a battery this way. Any thoughts on what’s going on? This is a mystery to me.

Thanks.

Rob
B331 Motu Iti
Fort Worth, TX


Sent from my iPhone

[Alvis]

I presume Battery 1 is the Engine Battery and Battery 2 the House battery.

A sick engine battery would explain hard starting, even with shore power connected. Did you try starting the engine while you were out sailing?

Maybe the windlass is wired to draw from both batteries, so when the windlass breaker is closed, both batteries are connected together. This would be unusual and would require a two pole circuit breaker.

Does the windlass work normally? You would like to know why the breaker tripped.

Cheers

Stuart

[JoeT]

First, I would turn off all 3 battery switches (Batt1, Batt2, Gnd) and then check the batteries voltage while off shore power.

Sounds like a bad start battery.

I don't know your boat year and model, but on my '05 Bene 343 (and many other 343's) the batteries were supposed to be set up to bridge together when the engine is running so both banks would charge. Except, Beneteau messed it up on quite a few boats and the bridging would get stuck on and sometimes if you let the house bank go flat (long weekend on the hook) you'd also have a dead start battery. Beneteau even sent out instructions on how to resolve this condition. 

The same relay that enabled the bridging also enabled the windlass so that the windlass can't run without the engine running. It may be possible that this problem is somehow intertwined with the windlass breaker and when you reset the breaker, it also activated the bridging relay and thus the 8v from the bad start battery jumped up to 12 when bridged to the house bank. 

JoeT

'06 B343

Regina del Seni

[Bruce Home]

Can we find the instructions from Beneteau to fix this?

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 13, 2023, at 4:14 PM, JoeT <joetomb...@gmail.com> wrote:

First, I would turn off all 3 battery switches (Batt1, Batt2, Gnd) and then check the batteries voltage while off shore power.

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[Rob Karov]

Joe,

Mine is a ‘04 331. The engine was off and not on shore power when I took the battery measurements, and they are both 6 months old (the “low one” bounced back from 8 to 12 volt’s immediately after resetting the windlas breaker). My alternator does supply 14v to each battery while the engine is running, and I’ve had batteries run flat independently in the past, so I think I am appropriately bridged. 

But you bring up a perhaps pivotal fact, I never knew the windlas was connected to this bridge, if you will, only knowing that I had to have the engine running for it to operate. 

I think you provided a plausible reason for the interaction I am seeing, at least the best one I’ve heard of yet. I’ll experiment some more with battery measurements when I am sure they are topped off and try and create the voltage drop through simply tripping the breaker, and verifying all is exactly still in-line with the facts as I understood them originally. 

Your response is very much appreciated. 

Rob

On Dec 13, 2023, at 3:13 PM, JoeT <joetomb...@gmail.com> wrote:

First, I would turn off all 3 battery switches (Batt1, Batt2, Gnd) and then check the batteries voltage while off shore power.

--

[JoeT]

On the 343's, the neg lead to energize the parallel (bridging) relay was supposed to get grounded by a little Tyco relay, which in turn was energized by the alternator. This same Tyco relay also fed the gnd lead (G1-) to the windlass controls. Instead, the gnd lead (G2-) to the bridging relay was connected to the load side of the ground battery switch. The fix was simply moving that lead back to the Tyco relay where it belonged.

Yours may be a different issue as the windlass breaker is on the positive side of things. It does not make any since that the battery voltage would jump up when resetting the breaker unless the bridging relay kicked in. You'll just need to trace all the relay control wires to see if they match the factory intended schematic. The pic below is from the 343 schematic and should be pretty close to yours. Good Luck.

JoeT

B343

Regina del Seni

[Rob Karov]

Thanks much, Joe, will check it out. 

On Dec 15, 2023, at 3:07 PM, JoeT <joetomb...@gmail.com> wrote:

On the 343's, the neg lead to energize the parallel (bridging) relay was supposed to get grounded by a little Tyco relay, which in turn was energized by the alternator. This same Tyco relay also fed the gnd lead (G1-) to the windlass controls. Instead, the gnd lead (G2-) to the bridging relay was connected to the load side of the ground battery switch. The fix was simply moving that lead back to the Tyco relay where it belonged.

Yours may be a different issue as the windlass breaker is on the positive side of things. It does not make any since that the battery voltage would jump up when resetting the breaker unless the bridging relay kicked in. You'll just need to trace all the relay control wires to see if they match the factory intended schematic. The pic below is from the 343 schematic and should be pretty close to yours. Good Luck.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beneteau-owners/b85875e9-df2d-4307-b83e-787732bf38a7n%40googlegroups.com.

<343 batt switch wiring.png>

[William C Bonner]

Thanks for this thread. I finally have some idea what that Tyco relay is. 

I've been wanting to upgrade the battery charger in my 2007 B373 from the Xantrex TrueCharge to a Victron MultiPlus-II but have been delaying the decision while I figure out what the current wiring and devices actually do. 

I've been looking at https://www.victronenergy.com/markets/marine/sailing-yacht and thinking of staying with lead-acid batteries. Their simplified diagram has a Battery Combiner and I've not figured out how anything really needs to be connected.

Any suggestions for good wiring diagram software that doesn't cost too much to use? 

[RichSail99]

Still don't understand what the is the purpose of the small square  at the right side of the diagram..  Is it a relay?  which is the coil and which is the switched side? What does it do?

[JoeT]

RichSail99,

The little square on the right is the Tyco relay. Its purpose is to enable the windlass and energize the bridging relay when the engine is running. 
The coil is between pins 85 & 86 (left & right on the diagram) and the N.O. contact is between pins 87 & 30 (top & bottom on the diagram).

You only want the windlass enabled when the engine is running to have enough power for it without draining the batteries too much.

The bridging relay connects the house and start batteries  together so they both charge from the alternator.

Joe T.

'06 B343

Regina del Seni