Alarm buzzer in the shipyard?

[Vincentc]

My short stay in the shipyard to replace the zincs and swim platform was first extended by the Miami Boat show and problems with the platform supports pulling out. The following weekend we moved our oldest daughter home from Atlanta. The boat has been sitting up now for 3 weeks.

I went down to the boat this afternoon and heard an alarm buzzer going off. The sound appears to be coming from the port side of the wheel at the lower helm. I removed the fuses from the engine/fire alarm and that did not stop the buzzer. The sound seems to be coming from the area just to stbd of the alarm box. I checked the batteries and the port batteries are dead and the stbd battery bank almost so. I will be hooking up a charger tomorrow.

Any idea the source of the buzzer?

thanks,

 

[Boatsb]

High water alarm?

 

[fissioneng]

Do you have an AC power alarm? Is the boat plugged into shorepower? Someone may have flipped a breaker off.

 

[sgharford]

If you have type of bilge switch pictured below they have small piezo electric buzzer that goes off if pump runs longer than 2 minutes. It's a very short run of wire they give, I put mine very close to bilge switch as result. These switches clog easy and stick in upward position - I don' recommend them. However, the 'Ultra" bilge pump switches of similar design are great - I think because they are much larger so small amounts of crud don't jam the float in upwards position.

 

[Vincentc]

Thanks,
It is not a high water alarm, and we are not plugged into shorepower.
Hope to go down and lunch time and investigate further.

 

[Xmeter]

I had the same thing happen to me years ago. It turned out to be an alarm for the Halon system.
The buzzer itself was mounted where there was just no way to access it without major work. I lucked out and started checking the connections on the rear of the test panel and got it to stop. I cleaned up all the connections and it never did it again in the 5 years that I owned the boat.

 

[Vincentc]

I still do not know the source of the buzzer, but believe I know the cause, low voltage. As soon as I ran a shore power line and made the battery charger operational the buzzing stopped.

Regarding shorepower:
I recall reading that if you are running power to your shorepower when the boat is on the hill you should run a ground wire. I connected a 12 ga wire to the stbd strut and a metal rod hammered into the ground beneath the boat. Any thought on whether this is appropriate and sufficient.

Thanks

 

[Boatsb]

You may have a 12 V to ???? converter. I have a 12 to 24 for the 10K radar. It has an alarm if the 12V drops below a certain level. Could be something like that.

 

[fissioneng]

Low voltage alarm on one of your electronics?

 

[yachtsmanbill]

My GPS beeps when the volts drop to less than 11. How about an icebox with an alarm if the doors are ajar? We have one here... at least the ice cream doesnt get soft! ws

 

[rsmith]

I still do not know the source of the buzzer, but believe I know the cause, low voltage. As soon as I ran a shore power line and made the battery charger operational the buzzing stopped.

Regarding shorepower:
I recall reading that if you are running power to your shorepower when the boat is on the hill you should run a ground wire. I connected a 12 ga wire to the stbd strut and a metal rod hammered into the ground beneath the boat. Any thought on whether this is appropriate and sufficient.

Thanks

I had a friend that was electrocuted when he touched the prop when the shore power was connected. I always ground mine the way you did just incase.