Friday, May 16, 2008

Autohelm working...

Well, while still waiting for engine parts... I dug through the mess of a nav station (top left pic) where I currently "hide" all the owner's manuals to all that be on the boat. Reorganizing the nav station is going to need to be added to the todo list.
Locating the old Autohelm manual, I was able to trace all the lines and confirm to where they were going/coming. I have no idea how old the Autohelm is or when it was installed. It looked liked the Autohelm was powered directly to the engine without a fuse in between... I was afraid perhaps the Autohelm might have been blown if it saw a power surge... I disconnected the wire to the engine and connected the Autohelm power line to one of the fuses shown in the mess of wiring in the pic on the left (been working for two years trying to clean this mess up, doesn't look like I've done much). With limited fuses (better get to the hardware store), I had to steal from Peter to pay Paul. Then I hit the newly connected fuse switch and wa-la! power to the Autohelm!!!! pic on right. I performed the in-place calibration for features that could be set at the dock.
Next, need to go out and see how she works!!!!
Without doubling up, I've now used up every spot of the 10 fuses available on the existing old fuse panel; and, I haven't hooked up the fuel gauge yet! I think I'm going to double up the fuel gauge with the GPS/Chartplotter fuse... for now.
The pic bottom right shows my "labeling system" for all the new stuff put on the panel in the past couple of years... Bilge pump was also rewired to the existing spot.
Next stop, West Marine for new circuit breaker panels with more spots!
Have I mentioned? I'm exhausted. and, I don't think I can exert any more muscle power out of my arms.

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