There are fuses in the breaker panels!

[MikeP]

Those Hatt electrical guys were tricky!

Yesterday, while working on the waste system I accidentally grounded the hot side of one of the oem waste level sensors. Big snap/spark and then no power. "No problem," I thought, "I'll just reset the breaker." But there wasn't one in any of the DC elec panels. Then, I figured it was a fuse in one of the big boxes in the eng room...nope, no such fuse. I hunted around the boat for probably an hour trying to figure where Hatt had hidden the breaker or fuse.

Finally I broke out the wiring diagrams. I found the level sensor and the 10A FUSE shown on the schematic but I still didn't know where the fuse could be found. So I pulled out the oem Hatt manual that came with the boat and found a line drawing with a list of all the elec panels and what was in them (should have looked there first).

Well I'll be darned, the fuse for the waste sensor is in the DC Ships Service #1 panel, which is a panel of 16 circuit breakers. But the fuse is inside the box, behind the front panel. The breakers are all listed on the panel but there is nothing saying there are fuses inside. So you have to remove the panel cover to get to the fuse. It would never have occurred to me that a fuse for a circuit would be inside a breaker panel. If I didn't have the oem Hatt docs on board, I'd still be looking. Well, actually I would be posting here to see if anyone knew where the fuse or breaker was located.

So don't be surprised to find that a fuse you can't find is cleverly hidden inside a circuit breaker panel.

I'll bet when they designed it they were laughing..."Let's put that fuse in here, they'll never find it!" There are several other fuses in there as well.

 

[bigbill]

are you sure they were not added? are they in-line fuses, or are they in a fuse block. my 1972 58yf doesn't have anything like that, and i have been in every imaginable place on the boat.

 

[MikeP]

No, they were not added; They are in a fuse block with original hatt labels on the block and with the Hatt wiring numbers. All are shown in the oem documentation/wiring diagrams.

Earlier hatts had far fewer circuits/panels. A local 1970 53 hatt has a single elec panel and it's located in the port eng room. Our '80 has 5, not counting the big panels that have the rotary switches that turn off the master ships service/engine starters. Those big panels also have fuses - big 50 to 200A fuses as well as several of the little bussman glass fuses like the one for the holding tank sensor.

I noticed a few days ago that the 70 53MY's helm station is considerably closer to the windshield than our 80, all due to the additional electrics behind the helm. It appears to me that as Hatt added systems/circuits they just stuck panels anywhere they could find a spot for one. Our boat has two AC panels, one in the port eng room and one at the top of the galley stairs (starboard salon wall forward of the sliding door. There are 3 32 VDC panels, one in the port eng room, one in the star eng room and one on the port salon wall, forward of the sliding door.

All of these panels are described/illustrated in the oem paperwork for our boat.

 

[SeaEric]

I once had an electrical problem during a survey/seatrial on a 53 ED. I have Roger Wetherington's cell # saved in my phone (thank God) and a call to him pointed me to where the "hidden" fuses are located.

I keep telling prospective 53 Hatt owners: "These are very complicated boats". Rarely do they believe me. Funny, Mike P and I just had this very conversation this afternoon. Turns out we're right - these are complicated boats!

 

[OBXTucker]

I had to go in there and change a fuel pump fuse the first day I owned Kismet....
I thought to myself, "mental note to self..."

Haven't been back in there since, but I know there's a lot of fuses behind that panel!

 

[SKYCHENEY]

You guys don't take enough stuff apart. I'll admit it takes time to find all of this stuff, but if you open every hatch, panel, and box, you'll eventually learn the whole boat.

 

[SeaEric]

You don't generally think about having to take 4 screws out of a nondescript panel in an engineroom to access fuses. But I do agree with you Sky. If you look around thoroughly, and read the Hatteras manual, its all right there, in plainly written English.

 

[SKYCHENEY]

You don't generally think about having to take 4 screws out of a nondescript panel in an engineroom to access fuses. But I do agree with you Sky. If you look around thoroughly, and read the Hatteras manual, its all right there, in plainly written English.

I just can't stand not knowing how everything is put together. If there are screws there, I'm likely to take them out and have a look.

 

[captddis]

Me too, I open everything and want to know where everything is. Hatteras systems are similar enough that you should be able to find fuses etc. It is the add ons that cause problems.

 

[OBXTucker]

Not sure if my physical panel is oem, but it had about 8 screws and a piano hinge. It now has 3 screws for easy access.
All fuses are properly labeled, which is nice.

I think I've been in every hole on the boat. If I didnt know what it was, I traced it down (or heaven forbid, pulled out the schematic) and then labeled it with a label gun (which stays onboard).

The biggest challenge has been the wiring below the pilothouse. So many wiring changes over 32 years that weren't properly labeled or entirely removed. I still have that on my to do list. Maybe this winter....