cabin light breaker

[tudortucker]

1990 28 Marlin's cabin light breaker threw last time out and won't reset.
I've swapped with radio and found my problem is in the circuit and not a
bad breaker. I've also looked at most of my lamps an don't see any problems there. Anyone had any sucess or tips on how to chase this one
down. Previously the Batteries and Charger have been renewed but I'm
not sure if that's related. Gloustcher VA

 

[jehines3]

Pull all the bulbs. Try and reset the breaker. If it still is bad, you'll need a meter. Your best bet is to divide and conquor by breaking the strings of lights at a few locations. I would figure it is a chaffed wire in a riggin tube or in a fixture. Good luck these ones make old boats suck. Let me know what you find as we have the same year boat. jh

 

[BobP]

Water water everywhere, see where it is and shouldn't be.

- that's why they have those little rubber boots on the breakers

 

[Buck]

Y'all, I have a 2001 282 Sailfish and my cabin lights all stopped working out of the blue. Everything else in the cabin works: reefer, outlets, electric head. But the lights down there don't. All electrical lights, etc. outside of the cabin work 4.0.

I have checked the fuzes under the helm but none are blown. Is there a breaker somewhere or another fuze somewhere? I saw the wire bundle coming back into the helm area on the starboard side, but can't tell where they go from there????

Buck

 

[seasick]

In the first case where the breaker wont reset, the best approach is to disconnect the connection at the breaker ( the load side) and see if the breaker can be reset. If so, it is probably good and you have a dead short somewhere. If it wont reset, you probably have a bad breaker.
Finding the short can be difficult. I would start by disconnection all cabin lights one at a time. Pull the fixtures to get to the wire connectors.
If that fails, you need to trace cables and that may be next to impossible. New runs may be called for. If you can find out how the lights are wired and find a common spot to all, cut the wires at that spot to see if the short is somewhere back to the breaker panel or forward towards the lights.


In the second case where the lights don't work, there is an open somewhere. A bad ground will have the same symptoms as an open feed. First step is to verify juice at the breaker output. Use a test lamp and a good ground. The next step is to see if there is juice at the lamp. Test the 12v feed and a known good ground. If no juice, the feed is open. If you read 12 v, try measuring between that feed and the fixture ground. If no voltage the ground is open. If 12V, the fixture/lamp is bad.