Monday, January 9, continued... When we went inside, we noticed that the refrigerator/freezer was off. Eric realized that the inverter had shut down. He started the generator and realized there appeared to be something seriously wrong.

The inverter reported that there was 1.6 volts in the battery connection; but the battery said it had 13 volts. Eric measured the voltage at the inverter and the 1.6 volt reading was correct. He measured the voltage on the other side of main fuse and it registered at 13 volts. It appeared the main fuse was blown. 

Eric tried the inverter by-pass switch so we could power the inverter circuit with the generator, but it didn’t work. This created a new set of questions: was the by-pass switch defective or wired wrong? Or was there a bigger problem with the inverter? 

Fortunately, Eric had spare fuses on hand. He installed the new fuse. The fuse blew almost immediately. Now Eric thought that the issue was probably that the inverter was shorted out. Fortunately, we also had a spare inverter onboard, too. However, he was a little nervous about installing the inverter only to have it die if the root cause of the failure was something else. He called a consultant, who agreed that the cause was likely the inverter and encouraged Eric to replace it.

Eric replaced the inverter and put in another fuse. This was a major project that took several hours. The inverters were heavy to move in and out of the lazarette, the mounting was in a spot that was awkward to work in, and it was tricky to properly un-wire/re-wire them up. But Eric was pleased to report that the new inverter worked! 

While removing the old inverter, Eric found some water. We think the water leaked inside the lazarette during the boat washing over the last the last few days, but Eric wasn’t able to identify the source of the leak. He fabricated a shield to go around the inverter out of the cover of a plastic bin. He’s hoping that the shield will prevent water from getting in while still allowing for plenty of ventilation. 

While we’re sad about the early death of the inverter, we’re thankful that it happened when it did. We were on a dock in a calm marina with cell phone service. It could have been an ugly situation if it had happened while we were at sea or in a rolly anchorage.

We’ll close out this post with a sunset photo