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Mystery Electrical Contraptions

BlueStringPudding
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BlueStringPudding Veteran II

BlueStringPudding

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I was delving around behind the Haunted  Killer Tarantula Wall today, topping up the header tank, and realised that I don't know what some of the contraptions here are. Obviously the big silver thing is the header tank and the things with rows of screws are bus bars. But what's the black box with "Durite" written on it, the red box next to it, and the green box up in the top right corner? And what do they do? ?

Thanks.

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Chewbacka Veteran

Chewbacka

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Bit difficult to see, but the black Durite box is a relay as is the greenish box in top right of picture, however the greenish box (relay) looks like it is only used to join 2 wires together, and no longer has a purpose.  The black relay may be part of your battery charging system, but without following the wires it’s impossible to be sure.

i can not read what is written on the red box, but can see it has 2 wires, can you read what is written?

 

added

looking again at your photo, the durite relay doesn’t seem to have any ‘control’ wires and the two power cables seem to both go to the same terminal, in which case it doesn’t do anything other than joining 2 wires together.  A photo looking up at the terminals of each relay would help clarify how many cables and to which terminal they are connected to.

 

If i’m correct about the relays doing nothing, joining the wires is an important job, so don’t just disconnect them. 

Edited by Chewbacka
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Eeyore Rising Star

Eeyore

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The durite relay also appears to have two large cables joined together on one terminal; and niether has any small wires connected to the coil connections. So 2 out of three do nothing at all; you will need to follow the wiring from the red fuse holder to see if its a member of the same club. I see Chewbacka has posted similarly on the duplicate

thread.

 

Edited by Eeyore
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Guest

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3 hours ago, Keith M said:

I would not consider the Durite relay as heavy Duty you should be OK to about 100 amps, do not take any notice of the 180 amps on the case

Agreed.

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BlueStringPudding Veteran II

BlueStringPudding

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3 hours ago, Stilllearning said:

Split charge relays usually take the charge from the alternator and split it between the domestic and engine start batteries. That is as far as my understanding goes at this point, hope it helps.

I've got a separate one of those on the opposite side of the boat where the batteries are. A big blue  rectangle thing with fins and some terminal nuts (matron)

 

I bipassed it a few years ago. When the boat was a hire boat (or maybe under one of the boat's previous owners) it split the domestic alternator output between three domestic batteries and a separate battery for the Ebercrapper (the starter battery has it's own alternator). As it's been some time since the Eber worked and that finned split charge thingy developed an intermittent fault, it's no longer used. All four domestic batteries are now charged directly from the domestic alternator and powering the boat while ignoring the Eber.

 

So I'm perplexed as to what these other relays are for and why they're so far away from the batteries. Related to the Eber maybe? I can't follow any individual cable coz they go through the metal bulkhead into the fat wiring loom under the cruiser stern.

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alan_fincher Veteran II

alan_fincher

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Do you have two alternators - one to charge the starter battery, and one to charge the domestic bank?   Digging back in my memory to problems you had some years back, I suspect you do?

If so, it is hard to see why you would need a split charge relay at all.

 

Did the boat originally have an engine with a single alternator, maybe, that later got swapped to a newer one with two alternators?

As has been said though the "green cobweb box" only has two wires jointed at a single connector, so is serving no role beyond joining those two wires.

 

As has also been said, the Durite relay can only do anything useful if it has wires to contacts 85 and 86 to energise it, in addition to those going to 30 and 87, (which is what would be actually getting joined together by the switch if it could be energised.)  I can't obviously see any wires that might be going to 85 and 86, so if you can confirm there aren't then that's also doing nothing other than joining wires together.
 

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alan_fincher Veteran II

alan_fincher

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What you want is one of these to further reduce any chances of tracing what wire does what!......

Now removed from "Flamingo" the sole purpose of this little beaty was, it seems, to confuse and bamboozle.

 

It ensured that wires that were at one end of a loom and were a certain thickness and colour were definitiely not a similar looking wire at the other end of the loom.

 

 

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Chewbacka Veteran

Chewbacka

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As I said in the other thread, it looks to me from the photo that neither relay does anything anymore with the cables that were (presumably) switched are now joined on one of the relay terminals.  What the relays were for originally can only be speculated, so whilst they may have been part of a split charge system they could also have been used to disconnect certain loads when the engine is turned off to protect the starter battery.  

 

Added. In post 19 the blue thing with fins and nuts might be a split charge pair of diodes, but without a photo it’s just a guess, and even if it is, it may no longer do anything depending upon how it’s actually wired.

Edited by Chewbacka
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Stevec Explorer

Stevec

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I can confirm what others have said the Durite is usually used for split charging batteries. The thick wires go to the positive of each battery (say domestic and starter) The small connections that have been cut off are wired to the D+ terminal of the alternator and engine frame. In this case the Durite is unused and could (if you are careful) be removed.Insulate the wire ends or trace back and completely remove
Its a similar story with the green box - another split charge relay now being used just as a teminal to connect two wires. As above you could remove it and fit the two wires into a terminal block or use an inline crimp.

 

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