Emergency power for hatch lift on 420 Sea Ray

B

BVasily

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Jul 5, 2005
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18136
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Went to check engines and found SB battery dead and hatch lift dead. Started charger and will try again in a few days ... but ... begs the question of how to have a backup for the electric lift motors in the event of a failure of circuitry or batteries. Has anyone out there done this?
 
Use a battery A/B switch to allow switchable battery source for the lift motor(s)...
 
Or keep a good set of jumper cables onboard? Or a portable battery jump-pack?

But are you sure yours isn't set up as Bill suggests, perhaps with a 4 position switch to switch between or combine batteries in special situations? Note , combining a good battery with a bad one for this purpose would provide lower voltage than just using the good battery. Hopefully the battery switch is not in the engine room! :-D
 
Sounds like a separate emergency battery is your best solution tied into your charging system but not the ignition or anything else.
 
Try a back feed with a jump pack thru the cigarette lighter.
 
This happened to me before. The battery charger (and battery) died and I was unable to open the hatch. In my case, I was able to feed power into the circuit at the helm station. I used an old 20amp charger and just clipped it to the ground and power bus bar under the helm station where the breakers are. A battery jumper pack would well for this in lieu of a charger. Plugging into the cigarette liter socket may work as well if you can get enough current through it and it's on the same power circuit.

Also, there are screw-in access panels adjacent to the lift pivot points - in theory, you can open these, reach in and pull the pins and lift the hatch manually. The reality is though that if there is any stress on the pins, your not going to be able to pull them out.
 
Never thought about pressure on the pins. It may be worth a looksee to cut battery power and check if the lighter scenario does work for your boat. It's a known workaround for the average out of the box 330.

If it doesn't work, it might be worth putting an aux power access in line with that breaker for emergencies.
 
The cigarette lighter route would probably work as long as ALL electricals are off. The cigarette lighter carries lots of amps so it's circuit should work. You can always connect a couple 6 Ga wire from the lift solenoid. Same idea as hot wireing. I have a remote starter switch just to turn over the engine if I need it. Same idea
 
quote:
Originally posted by walterv

Bob,isn't there a manual override?

Click to expand...


Agreed? My last boat had a power engine cover and in the cockpit there was panel that hid two terminals that you could hook jumper cables too and if I remember correctly depending on which one you put the red on would raise or lower.

Good luck
Niles
 
locate the hatch lift motor , how many wires does it have?
If 3 blue, green, black hardwire jumpers to these and run to a convenient location
If 2 wires, hardwire to the motor wires , and use a double pole, double throw, spring return mounted in a convenient location.
 
Find a spot in one cabinet on the deck where you can install a power source to the house battery and use the power pack. Use two bolts run battery cable from these bolts to the battery and in case of dead battery use the power pack .
 
sound good but if the battery is stone cold dead or shorted that wont work. best place to attach is at the motor and run the wires to a convenient location
 
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