56MY anchor / Nav lights are crisscrossed

[pmacFL]

I want to replace Nav lights which were not working. The only thing changes was the actual fixtures.Now the stern light and starboard light come one when switch is part way out. The port light comes in with switch all the way out.Does anyone know where wires come together.The back of the switch at both helms has wires 309, 310, and 311 connected. That all looks stock and original.Thank

 

[Captain Ralph]

I want to replace Nav lights which were not working. The only thing changes was the actual fixtures.Now the stern light and starboard light come one when switch is part way out. The port light comes in with switch all the way out.Does anyone know where wires come together.The back of the switch at both helms has wires 309, 310, and 311 connected. That all looks stock and original.Thank

3 position pull switches, Toggle or rocker nav light switches all work with with the same theory.
B+ to one lead, one position applies power to one set of lights, the next position applies power to the next set of lights. All lights return to B- or ground. Pending a common anchor light/steaming light, a diode may be involved.

If all lights are using standard incandescent lamps, I would say something is mis-wired on the switch.
If your new lights were LEDs, an whole new headache appears.
So my first questions;
New LED lights?
Combination steaming / anchor light?
Single station light switch?

 

[pmacFL]

Good information. There are 2 stations. Push/Pull style.Once it became dark it was much easier to troubleshoot. Both switches appear to be very intermittent. The lights flash and flicker when I wiggle the switch. Most of time, the wrong combinations came on, but I was able to get the correct ones on.The lights by the way, are new Hella multi volt series and work natively with 32v.On fly bridge, I have one forward facing white light, and one anchor light.At this point, I will replace both switches and see if that sorts out.

 

[dsharp]

You have the wire that powers the port running light connected to the anchor light circuit. The first position is all of the running lights and all the way out is the anchor light.

 

[pmacFL]

Well, new switches did not solve problem. The problem is not at switches, as there is only one wire going out to Nav lights. They must junction elsewhere. Do anyone know where those terminal strips might be?On plus slide, flicker and intermittent is solved.

 

[SKYCHENEY]

There are two terminal strips where these wires lead from each helm switch. One is under each helm. Follow those wires down to the terminal strip. You may need to clip a few cable ties to separate the wires in each bundle to be able to trace them.

 

[pmacFL]

Problem solved.I am using the Hella multivolt series lights. They are designed for 12/24 volts, but since they say 9-33 volts, I thought they would work.For testing, I powered the circuit (labeled 309) with a variable DC power supply. This helped the troubleshooting immensely. From 12 to 33 volts the three new multivolt Hellas work fine. At 34.25 they go into protection and shut down. Though each one at slightly different voltages.In early testing, I still had the incandescent anchor light, when that one was turned on, the load dropped the voltage enough to allow one side light to work, but not the other. That created a lot of confusion and wasted time.For whatever reason the anchor light (circuit 311) and steaming light (circuit 310 with the rest of the nav lights) are feed from pilot house terminal block. The others come from the fly bridge terminal block.The cable runs to pilot house were bad. Those were bundled up tight and very inaccessible behind electrical panel in pilot house. So I abandoned those and label as such. Ran new from fly bridge terminal block.The original source for power is under the lower helm, so I put a step down from 32 to 12 volts to drive entire circuit. I would used 24, but found a 12 first. Total load for all five lights is about 7 watts.All are uscg/colreg, and all switches work as they should. Its too bad the multivolt Hellas won’t work without conversion, but it’s a big improvement all the same.Thanks for the pointers along the way.