Bought another yacht in the last few weeks. Well known Currawong 30 from Sydney. It has had another reconditioned Volvo fitted by an expert a few months back and has not been used much in the last few months. The Volvo has the usual self contained wiring loom. I found that no matter what position the rotary switch was in I had 12volts at the starter switch. On investigation I found the rotary switch below wired up with both the smaller wires from terminal one and two going to the starter solenoid along with the heavy cable.




The problem was easily solved by removing both smaller cables altogether.

cisco said...

Congratulations on the new yacht. Looking forward to hearing more about it and seeing some pics.

Were the two smaller wires from the alternator and meant to be charging lines???

The two smaller lines went to the same terminal on the starter solenoid as the heavy starter cable from the switch. In this configuration both batteries are connected at all times and both batteries are also charged at the same time. The normal routine is the Volvo wiring loom has a connection to the same large solenoid terminal for 12v, then it operates like a normal car set up. The rotary switch is used to select either or both batteries. The batteries are charged by the same heavy cable.

The Currawong was called Katinka, I have changed the name to Ramona as the previous owner had a new vessel with the same "family" name. Has its own web page,
www.katinka.com.au