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 Test Mast Lights From Storage
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Cate
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Initially Posted - 04/03/2009 :  11:45:26  Show Profile
My mast is off the boat and stored at my marina. I would like to test the anchor light to see if it needs a new bulb before they put the mast back on the boat. Does anyone have an idea of how I could do that?
I have the four pin deck plug.
Thanks in advance.

1983 C-25, Standard rig, swing keel

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delliottg
Former Mainsheet C250 Tech Editor

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Response Posted - 04/03/2009 :  12:02:37  Show Profile  Visit delliottg's Homepage
It's pretty simply to test the bulb itself if you've got a multimeter, and only marginally harder without.

With a multimeter, you simply set the meter to measure resistance (ohms) and touch the leads to either end of the bulb. If your resistance is at or near zero, you have a good circuit across the bulb, and it should light when you apply voltage.

If you want to test the bulb w/o a multimeter, you'll need a battery with some leads attached to it to jump across the circuit. I've used a Makita 9.6 volt battery & a partially discharged Dewalt 18 volt to do this. Make sure you don't connect the leads directly across the battery, this will probably destroy the battery, at best you'll get a light show as it arcs & sparks.

If you've got the bulb out of the fixture, simply put the two leads on either end of the bulb. It doesn't matter which way unless it's an LED, then it does. If the bulb lights up, you're good. If you want to test in the mast, in the fixture this way, you can simply jumper the leads on your deck connection. There are 16 combinations for a 4 lead connector, so it's possible to be wrong 15 times (well, 14 if it's not an LED), but you'll also figure out your steaming light, etc. while you're doing this. I'm not sure what the connector looks like on a C25, but frequently they'll use some method of identifying the power or ground leads, with larger plugs & sockets, etc. Once you've figured it out, take pictures or notes so you don't have to go through all of the trial & error the next time.

Good luck & let us know how it works out.

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Tom Gauntt
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Response Posted - 04/03/2009 :  12:12:55  Show Profile
Cate,

I would use a simple ohm meter to check for continuity of each circuit. I'm not sure how your four-pin is wired, but I believe the four pin has one pin that is just a little bigger in diameter/longer than the other three. This is likely the ground wire. Put one test lead on the ground, and with your meter on Ohms, check each pin for an open circuit (i.e. an OL on digital meters and no deflection on an analog meter.)

Ground wires are generally black and/or green, and usually green for mast wiring.

If you do indeed have a light out, finding the culprit will involve either checking each bulb by removing from its socket, or by putting power to the circuit. If you have a battery nearby, it might be just as easy to fashion two short leads, attach to the battery, and test each circuit that way.

That's what I would do.

Actually, what I will really do is replace my anchor and steaming light with an LED light while the mast is down.

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Cate
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Response Posted - 04/03/2009 :  14:54:02  Show Profile
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Tom Gauntt</i>
<br />Cate,

I would use a simple ohm meter to check for continuity of each circuit. I'm not sure how your four-pin is wired, but I believe the four pin has one pin that is just a little bigger in diameter/longer than the other three. This is likely the ground wire. Put one test lead on the ground, and with your meter on Ohms, check each pin for an open circuit (i.e. an OL on digital meters and no deflection on an analog meter.)

Ground wires are generally black and/or green, and usually green for mast wiring.

If you do indeed have a light out, finding the culprit will involve either checking each bulb by removing from its socket, or by putting power to the circuit. If you have a battery nearby, it might be just as easy to fashion two short leads, attach to the battery, and test each circuit that way.

That's what I would do.

Actually, what I will really do is replace my anchor and steaming light with an LED light while the mast is down.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Tom, Last year I DID replace my anchor light with an LED and it never worked. I rewired my mast last year as well. Everything else worked , but that dang anchor light. That is what I want to test. I'm thinking of getting a 6 volt 12Ah spring top lantern battery and doing the lead test as you suggest.

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Renzo
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Response Posted - 04/03/2009 :  15:28:30  Show Profile
I take the small and light weight 12volt battery out of my lawn tractor and bring it down to the boat to check my mast lights and circuits before raising the mast.I also have used the multimeter to check continuity,but with the battery hooked up with aligator clips I can also for intermitent,loose conections by moving pulling and shaking wires and conectors.

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piseas
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Response Posted - 04/03/2009 :  15:34:53  Show Profile  Visit piseas's Homepage
Cate, Have you ever replaced the bulb? Why not just replace it now with a new one. Who knows how old it is or when it will go out. Mast is down. Get another bulb and stick it in. And while the mast is down, I bet you can think of a couple of other projects to do. Good luck.
Steve A

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Tom Gauntt
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Response Posted - 04/03/2009 :  15:40:19  Show Profile
Cate,

I'm not an electrical engineer, but I think those LEDs, because they are diodes, are pretty finicky about which way the juice flows through them. I do not know if the base of the anchor light bulb has one contact or two, but it might be as simple as turning the bulb 180 degrees in the socket (if it is a two-contact base). It could also be the socket is wired backwards... it doesn't matter on incandescent bulbs, but LEDs sometimes like current flowing in one direction. Get a battery of proper voltage (boat battery, car battery, cordless drill) and check the bulb first, out of the socket. If it works with the leads one way, but not the other, it could very well be a simple polarity issue. While the mast is down, switch the hot and the ground at the anchor light fixture and you're probably good to go. Of course you could have other wiring problems (corrosion, broken wires, etc) that is also keeping the circuit open.

Good luck and let us know what you find!

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delliottg
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Response Posted - 04/03/2009 :  15:56:15  Show Profile  Visit delliottg's Homepage
Tom,
You're exactly right, the LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) are polarized, if you don't have the current flowing into them in the right direction, you won't get any light. There was a thread just recently about someone on here having to switch his wiring around to make his LEDs work, but as you mentioned, it may be as simple as reversing the bulb in the socket. Or you may have to switch the wires because it's a single pin/body ground type of light. It's easy to check the bulbs as outlined above, and you can figure out which part of the bulb needs the positive side & which needs negative.

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Deric
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Response Posted - 04/03/2009 :  20:30:48  Show Profile
Hey Dave,

You are correct, I discovered in a recent thread, and posted same, that I needed to reverse the wiring to get the LED to light.

Deric

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sweetcraft
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Response Posted - 04/04/2009 :  16:49:47  Show Profile
I also use a small battery to test lights in their sockets.

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dreddick
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Response Posted - 04/04/2009 :  20:39:34  Show Profile
I have used a 9V battery for testing. It worked to light both my LED anchor bulb and regular steaming and deck lights. Here is an older thread about this...

http://www.catalina-capri-25s.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=15115



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dmpilc
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Response Posted - 04/05/2009 :  13:22:29  Show Profile
I have found that 2 six volt lantern batteries taped together and wired in sequence make a good 12 volt testing battery.

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Dave Bristle
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Response Posted - 04/05/2009 :  15:32:47  Show Profile
If you want to try hooking up to the connector pins, the [url="http://catalina-capri-25s.org/manbro/pictures/owners11.gif"]wiring diagram[/url] says the orange wire is for the anchor light, the white wire is for the bow (steaming) light, and green is ground. If you have a spreader (deck) light, it's on the yellow wire. You can unscrew the cover and see which wires go to which pins.

I like the idea of just replacing bulbs--call it "preventive maintenance".

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Cate
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Response Posted - 04/06/2009 :  09:41:53  Show Profile
Here is my weekend report. I used the 6 volt lantern battery and hooked up two short wires to the springs.(green and red) I wrapped my green wire to the deck plug ground , which is indeed slightly larger than than the other contacts. I touched the red wire to various other deck plug contacts and got both the steaming and deck light to glow. I say "glow" because the light was dim using this method. The LED anchor light did NOT go on at all.
I did not read about the LED light reverse polarity issue until now, but I'm going to try a fiddle with that.
As for other mast down projects, I rewired the whole thing last year and put in a new steaming/deck light (plus LED anchor light). Other than giving the sail slot a little spray of SailKote, we're good to go.
Trying to keep spring projects down to a minimum since last year we didn't get the boat into the water until late June !!!

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delliottg
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Response Posted - 04/06/2009 :  10:57:43  Show Profile  Visit delliottg's Homepage
This might be a stupid question, but regarding the LED, did you view it in darkness or near darkness? I ask this because after installing mine, testing it as you are now (at sundown or so), then launching the boat & getting it to the marina, I stood on the dock & looked up at the top of my mast & nothing, zip, nada, no light. Crap. Told Rita about it, figured we were going to have to learn how to drop the mast in the slip, etc. This was late afternoon and we had plenty of other chores to get done before leaving to go back home. Thankfully we managed to leave the light on the whole time, and just before we got ready to leave around twilight, I glanced up at the top of the mast, and lo & behold, there was light. It just wasn't visible in daylight! I felt kind of stupid, but relieved that I wasn't going to have to drop the mast to fix it.

In your case with the 6 volt battery, it could have simply been insufficient voltage to light the LEDs, I'm not sure what's required there. You might try [url="http://www.zbattery.com/seriesparallel-pf.html"]wiring two 6 volt batteries in series [/url] to get 12 to see if that solves the problem.

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Sloop Smitten
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Response Posted - 04/06/2009 :  11:16:55  Show Profile
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">In your case with the 6 volt battery, it could have simply been insufficient voltage to light the LEDs.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Correct. LEDs are not like incandescents. They do not emit light until their rated turn-on voltage is reached. You can add voltage and overdrive them but if you have insufficient voltage they will not appear dim like an incandescent. I would suspect 6 volts is inadequate.

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redeye
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Response Posted - 04/06/2009 :  14:53:56  Show Profile
The LEDS I wired would show dim when the battery was low, but they were dim for a very short time, and then they went out.

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dreddick
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Response Posted - 04/17/2009 :  06:47:32  Show Profile
I took a few pictures when I tested the mast lights last night and posted them here...

http://evenstar.mysailboatblog.com/tech-page/mast-light-testing/


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Deric
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Response Posted - 04/17/2009 :  17:03:55  Show Profile
Dave,

Is that the stock steaming light on your mast, or an enhancement?
What model is it?


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dreddick
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Response Posted - 04/17/2009 :  17:53:34  Show Profile
That steaming light was stock in '89 - here is the listing at Catalina Direct http://www.catalinadirect.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display& Product_ID=461


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Deric
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Response Posted - 04/18/2009 :  11:05:18  Show Profile
Thanks Dave,

I worked on my lights today and tested with a 9v battery. I discovered that the connecting pins in the socket were loose. I took the plug apart, cleaned the holes that received the mast wires, and tightened the screws that bind the pins to the wires.

Before working on the wiring, the steaming light flickered on and off, indicating a loose connection. After the repair of the wires, the steaming light no longer flickers, but instead, casts a steady beam of light -- a foretelling of its duty to light my way as I embark on a new sailing season.

Replacing the plastic lens of my anchor light: soon to arrive in the mail.

Deric

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Deric
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Response Posted - 04/18/2009 :  11:07:31  Show Profile
Thanks Dave,

I worked on my lights today and tested with a 9v battery. I discovered that the connecting pins in the socket were loose. I took the plug apart, cleaned the holes that received the mast wires, and tightened the screws that bind the pins to the wires.

Before working on the wiring, the steaming light flickered on and off, indicating a loose connection. After the repair of the wires, the steaming light no longer flickers, but instead, casts a steady beam of light -- a foretelling of its duty to light my way as I embark on a new sailing season.

Replacing the plastic lens of my anchor light: soon to arrive in the mail.

Deric

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