420/44 DB Owners Club

Re: 420 DB Owners Club

Are the foward a/c and the salon a/c on the same pump and is the forward a/c working properly? The Hi Pressure normally means no water flow. After you cleaned the strainer, did you bleed the air out of the strainer by loosening the cap and opening the seacock? I know you said you ran a hose directly, but didn't mention if the water is exiting the unit.
 
Re: 420 DB Owners Club

Jus' Chillin said:
Checking to see if any of you with 44db had a hi press error on thermostats and after flushing and cleaning strainers, forward a/c was perfect but salon a/c stopped cooling. Compressor kicked on but no cool air. Would not even cool using a hose directly connected to dock water and bypassing pump....usually this creates ice cold air coming from salon while flushing it. Had tech aboard yesterday (yes..Sunday call with 4 hr min) and tech said had NO freon in it and later said had a leak somewhere on lower area of coils near drain pan. Said system sucked up some trash into it (how can u tell without being able to see?). Said there is no way to clean this system out and now need a new unit. Said he charged it with freon to last until Tuesday but would need to pull it then to inspect further or replace likely. We were aboard 4 hrs after he left and it was 87 degrees in salon. Turning wrenches since I was a kid, something about this doesn't seem right. A/c was working fine all day Saturday. I can understand if maybe there was a week area and the hi press forced a crack but for it to lose a "full charge" in 4hours or less seems like the mechanic would have known this if he staid any time observing the unit after charging it to check for leak. Thanks.
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I'm not an A/C systems expert, but based on your description I see two different issues:

1. Clogged raw water supply - you have one pump that feeds 2 units (salon unit and fwd unit). It's easy to isolate the issue by observing discharge from both and see if there's a difference. As you may know the FWD unit discharges to the port side closer to the bow and salon unit discharges aft stbd side.

On the intake side, clean seastrainer doesn't guaranty you clear raw water supply. You still have scoop strainer that could have blockage and the worst case scenario the actual lines might have been clogged. The method of using dock water hose to flush the system would be #1 approach. Have you try it? How was the overboard discharge?

2. Lose of freon - I think your doubts of the tech's being fully qualified for the task might be valid. As you said a leak that lost all the freon very fast should be found easily. There's a special paint techs use that shows different color at the spot where the leak is. I see no reason why your tech couldn't use this method to find the leak.

Let us know how it works out.
 
Bow thruster issue - I am troubleshooting my bow thruster for blown fuses. According to the schematic in the 44DB owner's manual there are two 7.5amp fuses near or on the bow thruster solenoid and a single 30 amp fuse in the hot line from the bow thruster battery charger and the batteries. Anyone know the exact location of these fuses and the solenoid? Thanks.
 
Re: 420 DB Owners Club

Jus' Chillin said:
Checking to see if any of you with 44db had a hi press error on thermostats and after flushing and cleaning strainers, forward a/c was perfect but salon a/c stopped cooling. Compressor kicked on but no cool air. Would not even cool using a hose directly connected to dock water and bypassing pump....usually this creates ice cold air coming from salon while flushing it. Had tech aboard yesterday (yes..Sunday call with 4 hr min) and tech said had NO freon in it and later said had a leak somewhere on lower area of coils near drain pan. Said system sucked up some trash into it (how can u tell without being able to see?). Said there is no way to clean this system out and now need a new unit. Said he charged it with freon to last until Tuesday but would need to pull it then to inspect further or replace likely. We were aboard 4 hrs after he left and it was 87 degrees in salon. Turning wrenches since I was a kid, something about this doesn't seem right. A/c was working fine all day Saturday. I can understand if maybe there was a week area and the hi press forced a crack but for it to lose a "full charge" in 4hours or less seems like the mechanic would have known this if he staid any time observing the unit after charging it to check for leak. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Concur with Cod and Alex F - I find it hard to believe there is a freon problem. Check the output rate of each raw water discharge and check for sufficient water flow. I had a very similar problem only with my forward AC unit after I hauled out for a week to paint the bottom. This may be related so I will pass this on as something to consider before you replace the entire unit.

When in the slings prior to haul-out I opened the bilge hatch to close the seacocks. The yard foreman said it wasn't necessary. This is a guy who does this for a living so I obliged - against my gut feeling. Bad move. When I splashed a week later I experienced your same issue. In my case I could see that I was not getting sufficient water flow out of the forward discharge and the unit was not cooling. I wanted to see if I was getting raw water to the AC unit. With the pump on I loosened the clamp on the raw water line where it connects to the forward AC unit. When I slowly pulled it off, the raw water line "burped" air. I quickly reconnected the line, tightened the clamp and the unit started cooling. Water flow was restored. Air in the system created a hydraulic/air lock clearly preventing proper water flow. The air had no where to go until it was burped out. Something for you to consider.
 
JNMNL52 said:
Bow thruster issue - I am troubleshooting my bow thruster for blown fuses. According to the schematic in the 44DB owner's manual there are two 7.5amp fuses near or on the bow thruster solenoid and a single 30 amp fuse in the hot line from the bow thruster battery charger and the batteries. Anyone know the exact location of these fuses and the solenoid? Thanks.
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Just heard back from my dealer on this same question so I am going to answer my own post for those interested. The two 7.5 amp fuses are mounted side by side and attached to starboard wall separating the engine from the raw water pump and thruster batteries compartment. The 30 amp fuse is located directly below them. The fuses are encased in water proof housings. Pull back the clip, pull down out of the housing and you will see the blade fuse. I found the 30 amp fuse blown. There is also a blade fuse on the thruster motor itself and one in the battery charger housing. FWIW.
 
I'm curious why did the 30amp fuse go bad? Did you have the thruster engaged for too long non-stop to fight the wind or current?
 
Alex and Doug: Not related to an obstruction or duty cycle. In retrospect I can only surmise that I may have inadvertently shorted out the system when replacing my bow thruster batteries last fall. This 30 amp fuse is in direct line between the charger and the battery bank and also protects the charger from reverse polarity. When reconnecting my battery bank in series I may have inadvertently allowed one of the battery leads to touch each other or ground out and I didn't know it. The charger had all normal LED lights on and tested good at the terminals putting out 29.3VDC. I thought I was charging the thruster battery bank all winter while stored in my slip but they were just sitting there dormant. After using the thruster a few times this season I could see that the batteries were wearing down. Lesson learned - care must be taken when removing and replacing the battery terminals - red first then black and don't let them ground out with each other or with other surfaces. Fortunately my batteries charged back up and all is normal again.

Also FWIW related to the thruster - when I hauled out this spring to paint the bottom, I replaced my original 3 blade thruster prop with VETUS' new 6 blade model. It works great, now that I have power, seems to have more thrust and is quieter.
 
JNMNL52 said:
...Also FWIW related to the thruster - when I hauled out this spring to paint the bottom, I replaced my original 3 blade thruster prop with VETUS' new 6 blade model. It works great, now that I have power, seems to have more thrust and is quieter.
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I'm thinking on replacing my 3-blade prop to 6-blade version. Do you have the part number or what's the bow thruster model we have? The parts manual lists the 95KGF model, but I think it's either 75 or 85 version. I recall when using the model from parts manual to order zincs it didn't match and I had to order another zinc.
 
Alex F said:
I'm thinking on replacing my 3-blade prop to 6-blade version. Do you have the part number or what's the bow thruster model we have? The parts manual lists the 95KGF model, but I think it's either 75 or 85 version. I recall when using the model from parts manual to order zincs it didn't match and I had to order another zinc.
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Hi Alex: I have the VETUS 95. Looks like you do too. The VETUS part number is Vet-Set0088. Here is a link: http://www.pyacht.com/vetus-bow-thruster-props.htm
 
I changed to the Vetus 6-blade version a couple years ago. It might be slightly quieter and slightly more powerful, but certainly not enough of either to be considered an "upgrade..." I was a little disappointed actually.

OTOH, I changed my thruster batteries from lead acids to Duracell Group 31 AGMs - man what a difference!!!!

$167 each at Sam's:

http://www.samsclub.com/sams/durace...rv-battery-group-size-31dtmagm/prod3590232.ip

(FWIW all AGM batteries seem to be made by either East Penn or Oddyssey. Duracell/Deka/many others are East Penn. Diehard Platinum is Odyssey)



 
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JNMNL52 said:
Hi Alex: I have the VETUS 95. Looks like you do too. The VETUS part number is Vet-Set0088. Here is a link: http://www.pyacht.com/vetus-bow-thruster-props.htm
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Great! Thank you. I just placed the order.

First_Mate said:
I changed to the Vetus 6-blade version a couple years ago. It might be slightly quieter and slightly more powerful, but certainly not enough of either to be considered an "upgrade..." I was a little disappointed actually.

OTOH, I changed my thruster batteries from lead acids to Duracell Group 31 AGMs - man what a difference!!!!

$167 each at Sam's:

http://www.samsclub.com/sams/durace...rv-battery-group-size-31dtmagm/prod3590232.ip

(FWIW all AGM batteries seem to be made by either East Penn or Oddyssey. Duracell/Deka/many others are East Penn. Diehard Platinum is Odyssey)
Click to expand...

I've heard most people were happy with the upgrade to 6 blades, so I finally decided to give it a shot after having an incident that almost resulted in a collision on a windy day. Good thing I was able to recover after I said to my "screw the thruster, old fashion bailout method (punch the throttles to get extra torque) was my only way out". That saved the day big time. So, I'll use any extra boost from the new prop, after all it can't be any worst than original 3-blade one.

My all 6 batteries are group 31. I thought this was standard. I guess not.
 
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Alex F said:
My all 6 batteries are group 31. I thought this was standard. I guess not.
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Mine were slightly smaller than 31's maybe they were 27's....

Either way, I've replaced all six of them with AGMs. Much better all the way around. Engines start faster, thruster works better and no acid in my bilge.
 
I put smaller agm batts in for the thrusters with more cca's than gp 31 std lead acid batts. I installed 4 Sears gp 31 AGMs for the house/engines with tons of CCAs. Love them all.
 
John, what did your batteries cost? The $167 First Mate paid sounds very attractive.
 
Great price. Much less battery, no offense. Look at the batts comparative capacities/CCAs online. I paid 930 for four, but I have an account with Sears. The ones he has are similar in price and size to my bow thrster batts.

I spend all day at the island running two fridges, amps, stereo... Don't want any issues.....ever.
 
The SAM"S batteries look like Deka's. "8A31DTM"
I had 4 of those Deka's in my 320DA for 9 years. I bet I would have gotten another year out of them if I still had the boat.
I will become a member of SAMS Club just to replace my wet cells next season with these.
 
Fred said:
The SAM"S batteries look like Deka's. "8A31DTM"
I had 4 of those Deka's in my 320DA for 9 years. I bet I would have gotten another year out of them if I still had the boat.
I will become a member of SAMS Club just to replace my wet cells next season with these.
Click to expand...

Sam's Club's batteries are made by East Penn as are Deka's. So are West Marine's (albeit sold for $100 or so more). My OEM batteries were East Penn as well. I just replaced my bow thruster OEM Gp 31 LA's with Sam's AGM of the same size. Seemed to me on researching that they were an extraordinary bargain. While the specs are just a little less robust than Sears (reserve capacity 200 minutes for Sam's, 205 minutes for Sears), the big difference in price won me over. Not sure which way I will go for the the starting/house batteries, the CCA for the Sam's is lower (800 vs 1000) but 800 is the Sea Ray spec and I don't know if the extra is worth the price. I did notice that Sears is currently selling the Diehard AGM for $50 off, which is still $50 above Sam's but if anybody is looking now may be a good time to buy from Sears.
 
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I hear that the Sears AGMs - which are made by Odyssey - are of somewhat higher quality than the East Penns. Everything I've heard is that the East Penns are better than you need though. I am just glad to have the acid bubblers out of my boat!!!
 
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