Power Issues

Fascinating. The number of issues that can befall you in the blink of an eye. 

Having braved the 0° of the mid-May weekend and sleeping on the hard, we were congratulating ourselves on the fact that, while still on the hard, both engines had fired up nicely and all seemed good for launch that Monday. Which, in fact, we did. 

 

A chilly morning 'on the hard'

We had been plugged into 15-amp power without issue before hitting the water, but were perplexed to find that a red fault light came on the inverter/charger remote panel after we had plugged into the 30-amp shore-power. I switched off the i/c at the panel, let it sit for a bit and then turned it back on. No fault light, but now the unit wasn’t recognizing any AC input from the dock. 

 

The RV version of our Freedom 2000 Inverter-Charger

We tried many things: disconnecting all the power and batteries then setting them back up, tightening the connections, etc. But to no avail. 

Not good.

To top it off, the bilge pump seemed to be jammed on. Which meant, without the ability to charge the batteries from shore-power or generator, the pump would sooner or later drain the house batteries. So we had to switch the pump off. Fortunately, there were no leaks or issues with sea-cocks or anything, so we were okay in theory. But leaving the boat for any length of time without a bilge pump backup was dicey and would make for anxious nights.

 

The guilty bilge pump

We came back to the city and a couple of days later I returned to the boat hoping to try a couple of things that might bring the i/c back on line. No luck. So I had to remove the i/c to bring it back to Toronto to the only accredited Xantrex service people in the province. Disconnecting the i/c was comparatively easy, but the unit weighs 45 lbs. and was very awkward to maneuver out. But eventually it made its way into the truck. 

I took the bilge pump apart and cleaned it out and such but the problem was still there when I put it back in. 

Upon taking the i/c in to the service people I was told that they wouldn’t be able to get to it for 2 or 3 weeks and then even when they did, there was no guarantee that they would be able to get new parts for it, as the Freedom Inverter line had been discontinued in favour of a newer model with more bells and whistles. If they could fix it, it would end up costing somewhere in the region of $600. 

 

Getting there

So we went online and found a place that would sell us a brand new unit for around twice that. We decided to go that route as the old unit was a 2001 and we couldn’t be sure that it would last much longer anyway. 

Now we are waiting for the unit to arrive from the States so we can go up north and get this season underway.

Oh, and the catalytic converter on my truck fell off. Sigh.