www.iFourWinns.com

I got a problem!

I have had a loose blower light on my instrument panel since I purchased my boat back in July '08. The blower does work but the light never has. I forget to mention this to the dealer when I had my 20-hour service completed last month.

I thought the light may work after I tightened it up and ensured the connectors were well connected. It did not work. I checked the fuses under the helm and they look good. I did not see a fuse on top of the engine cover that affected the blower light. Is there an inline fuse or one that is located on the blower that affects the light? The light does in fact work as I have connected it to another switch just to eliminate that as the problem.

Does anyone have an idea about how to coorect this?

Obviously a trip to the dealer is in order if it is major problem, but that is a 90 mile round trip.

On my cluster, the LED lights under the switches are wired to the switch itself; that is to say there is no corresponding circuit to the blower to control on/off of the LED. When the switch is on, the LED light goes on, even if the blower is not connected. In fact, I had a spare switch on my helm that did nothing but turn it's LED on/off. I'm wondering if the switch/LED combination is not missing either the power or ground connection, thus preventing the LED from turning on with the switch. Note that this power and ground are entirely separate from the blower circuit. If you crawl under the helm with a flashlight and look at the back of the switches, you'll see how they are daisy chained. Look for wiring that is missing/different from it's neighbors. If the wiring all looks good, it's either a bad spade connector, or a bad switch, as you know the LED is ok. Checking for 12V of power from the power and ground supplies to the switch (again, not the wiring for the blower - you can ignore those two wires completely as the blower goes on/off), if you get 12V, you've got a bad switch, if you don't - switch to continuity tests among members of the each chain separately to test the respective connectors to isolate which is 'bad'. (Might not be a bad idea to disconnect the battery for this last test).

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2007 Horizon 200
4.3L GXi/ SX 225 HP

I second what Jim said.

On my 348 I think it only lights up when the running lights are on. I think the idea is the switches only light up to make themselves more visible at night, not when the circuit is active.

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-Bill Kearney, 2005 348 Vista

This is consistant with my boat





Dumb question...is the ground a black and yellow wire that leads to the wire harness or am I way off here?





I did not consider a bad switch






I checked the spade connector on the switch and it is "hot." So am I to assume a bad ground or a bad switch?

My money's on a bad switch.

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Mike
2005 Four Winns 230/240
VP 5.7GXi/DP
1998 F-150 XLT
Boat Pic

I dont think it can be the switch... he said the blower is working... if its possible to get a pic of the front and the back of the switch area would be helpful. Our switches have the leds built right into them so its hard for me to visualize your setup.

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Jeff

'14 Cruisers 380 Express "Simon Sez"
Merc 8.2 Mag MPI 380
DTS B3X, (x2) Axius Premier


(SOLD)
'08 V318
Merc 350 Mag MPI 300
DTS Seacore, B3 (x2)

It's the fact that the blower is working that causes me to say bad switch. I'm betting the LED inside the switch has failed or was connected defectively. The connection to the blower would/could still be perfectly good.

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Mike
2005 Four Winns 230/240
VP 5.7GXi/DP
1998 F-150 XLT
Boat Pic

On mine '07 the led's are separate, and are mounted directly beneath the switch as you can see here.



So, in addition to connections for the blower circuit interrupt, there are ground and power connections for the LED. My guess is the switch is able to work the blower circuit interrupt, but is broken on the led power side.

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2007 Horizon 200
4.3L GXi/ SX 225 HP

Jim R has the same instrument panel as I do.
1. Blower works when button is pressed.
2. LED does not work on blower switch but does when plugged to another switch.
3. Switch is hot on the blower switch spade and is daisy chained (LED Wire...I think is red from memory)
4. The other LED wire (black...once again from memory) that is plugged to the black/yellow wire is where I suspected my problem is. That wire leads to a wire harness under the helm that leads to oblivian.....

I guess I should take a picture when I get home. maybe one of my wires are crossed. I don't know...I've tried everything. I don't know what is right or wrong anymore.

Not a dumb question at all. From looking at the electrical diagrams for the 2007 240H (could be different!) it looks like your blower switch setup is far more complicated that that on my 200H. Basically there is also wiring to the switch that powers an optional fireboy fire suppression system. That is the black and yellow wire according to my schematics. The power for the led should be a blue wire to pin 8. The connections to the blower are yellow (pin 3), and orange/yellow (pin 2). It's not shown in my diagram, but typically there is a blk wire to pin 7, that would be a ground. I suspect that the fireboy is setup to break the ground connection to turn off the blower in the event of a fire suppression event.



Because of the added complexity of the fireboy, I'd be inclined to mark and disconnect the connections to the neighboring switch (looks like the bilge switch) and temporarily move the blower connections over to that switch on a pin for pin basis. If the led works over there, I believe you've isolated it to the switch.

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2007 Horizon 200
4.3L GXi/ SX 225 HP

Hold on a minute here! Something about the fireboy providing ground for the switch to disrupt the blower was bugging me. FW would not want that switch to act as the others and turn on the LED when the switch is turned on, if the fireboy prevented the blower from operating. (Safety hazard, that may lead one to thinking they were venting fumes, when the blower was not operating.) Therefore, the ground provided by the fireboy yellow black wire must provide ground for the both the blower AND the LED. This means that switch, while having the same pin outs and SPST configuration as the bilge switch, might be different. Sure enough, the parts list shows a different P/N for the two switches. Please IGNORE my previous advise on testing the switch by swapping out the bilge switch - I now suspect the two are different. If I were to make a leap from my assumption that the two switches are different, I'd suspect FW installed the wrong switch at the factory (gave you a regular bilge type switch, rather than one that 'shares' the ground with the LED.) Because of the fireboy tie-in, I'd make this a higher priority item for the dealer to fix.

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2007 Horizon 200
4.3L GXi/ SX 225 HP

Sorry, I didn't realize the newer switches had external LED's. I completely agree with Jim's last post.

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Mike
2005 Four Winns 230/240
VP 5.7GXi/DP
1998 F-150 XLT
Boat Pic

Thanks for delving into this. I see it's more complicated than I originally thought. I was completly stumped on this prior to the post, now I'm overwhelmed...I'll have to call the dealer for an appointment....darn it! lol

That's what the Admiral said, "Call the dealer"!

Once fixed I'll update the thread in case this occurs to someone else.


.

In case you didn't know it, a Fireboy is an automatic fire suppression system mounted in the engine compartment. Essentially it looks like a horizontally mounted fire extinguisher. It is temperature sensitive, when the surrounding air reaches that temp, the extinguisher releases a Halon-like gas which starves any fire of oxygen. To do this, the engine compartment has to be sealed up a bit better than usual, and the blower fan must be disengaged. I seem to recall that Coast Guard requirements call for a helm mounted 'gauge' with an LED indicating that the fireboy is charged and 'ready' - or rather, this is rquired for the fireboy to count towards the minimum number of fire extingishers required. Do you have such a gauge? Maybe you don't have a Fireboy.

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2007 Horizon 200
4.3L GXi/ SX 225 HP

I took the boat to the dealer on Thursday. 1 1/2 hours later, they got the light to work. Apparently the ground wire was not grounded. The tech said probably a mistake from the factory. I'm just glad it works. Thanks to all that replied, in particular JimR. Hopefully I can offer some insight to a FW member in the future.

I have to say I appreciate the service guys, Scott and Eric, at Boatland, San Diego. They have been very helpful and accomidating. That is saying a lot seeing that I didn't even buy my boat from them. Nevertheless, thay always answer my questions and seem to squeeze me in when I am in need.