Dangerous situation Deadman switch did not work!!!

[1h20skier57]

Yesterday my keypad was acting like I was not putting in the code. Frustrating, but finally the dash came alive and I pressed start, the engine started and when I pressed stop the engine would not stop!!. So, I pulled the dead man lanyard off and the engine continued to run. I was terrified, this should have killed the engine right away. The boat was on my lift about 3 foot above the water, so, I lowered it as quickly as possible. I really did not know what to do. So, I got a wrench and disconnected the battery cable. The engine did finally stop.

Question one
Why didn’t the dead man switch kill the motor ? How is this possible?
I have tested this before and it has always work, I have my gas tank key attached to the layard and I have forgot to hook it back up after getting gas, so I know it worked before.

Question two
Did I miss a recall or something? This is a 2000 Ski Nautique 196, I have owned this boat since 2001 and have had no problems with the boat, other than the digital gauges.

[JohnE]

My guess is just that any switch can fail. Take it apart and start the boat. Short the 2 wires and the boat should die. That will confirm that it is just the switch. BTW I believe the switch is normally open so this is the correct operation. If it is normally closed then shorting the wires will allow boat to start and opening will kill the engine. I'm not real informed on this, but that is what I'd do. Had a bad safety on an old outboard control so we bypassed it.

[1h20skier57]

Thanks for the ideas

My guess is just that any switch can fail. Take it apart and start the boat. Short the 2 wires and the boat should die. That will confirm that it is just the switch. BTW I believe the switch is normally open so this is the correct operation. If it is normally closed then shorting the wires will allow boat to start and opening will kill the engine. I'm not real informed on this, but that is what I'd do. Had a bad safety on an old outboard control so we bypassed it.

Thanks you for your reply. I need to get the keypad working properly also. I am afraid to start it again without making sure I can shut it off. Once I can shut it off, my guess is the keypad went bad, then I will trouble shoot the kill switch.

Another thing I noticed about the engine was ( it may have run for 5 min) was the alternator was hot and so was the starter relay. Hmmmmn.

[gmdattilo]

Safety Switch Should be Normally Open

I think that your dead man switch should be normally open. When you pull the lanyard off the switch should be an open circuit. All the switch does is break the connection on the purple wire between the PME and the engine. When the purple wire at the engine connector is hot with +12V the engine will run. When you press the stop button the PME should turn the purple wire off and this will cause the engine to stop running. It sounds like you have two problems. Your safety switch is probably bad. If yours is anything like mine the lanyard never gets pulled off. That being the case I can see how the switch could get mechanically stuck and fail to open when the lanyard does come off. It also sounds like your PME is not shutting off the power to the purple wire, that could be the PME or the keypad failing to tell the PME to turn off the purple wire. I don't know how to determine which of the two it is.

I have one other theory. I have also heard that continuing to energize the starter wire (yellow and red I think) can keep the engine running even if there is no power on the purple wire. This is why some people report an engine that will crank and fire but dies as soon as they let go of the start button. It usually turns out that they have their lanyard off of the safety switch. Since you are saying that your starter relay was very hot I wonder if the PME is holding the "Crank" wire energized. If that is the case maybe the start button on your key pad got stuck down. I like this theory better because it is one problem causing both issues.

If you have this problem again you can kill the engine quickly by pull the fuse that feeds the PME off of the battery. There should be an inline fuse on the red wire that feeds the PME directly from the battery. If you pull this fuse apart it will kill all the power to the PME and the engine will quit.

[Chexi]

Thankfully this happened on the lift and not when you were headed at another boat or the shore or something. This is scary.

[1h20skier57]

Update to this issue

I have replaced the keypad. And guess what? The deadman switch works perfect. I have written Correct Craft notifing them of the situation and that they have a design issue.

[1h20skier57]

Keypad is $500

FYI the keypad is $500+ dollars

[jasper]

The keypad ranges from approx $300 to $600. I know. I've bought at the min and max. Pricing is up to the dealer, so call some before you purchase. I believe White Lake is fairly reasonable.

Glad you got your issues resolved. If you have an "all off" switch, it should have killed the engine too.

[xrichard]

Kind of related to this thread: when my boat had about 10 hours on it, the key pad stopped working while the boat was running. The "stop" button didn't work to stop the motor, the ballast pumps wouldn't stop running (...they were on when the keypad stopped working...)...none of the buttons worked. I didn't think to check the dead-man switch. I turned off the motor by flipping the little toggle switch under the throttle to cut power to everything. That stopped the engine and, after flipping the toggle back on, the key pad worked again, too.

CC West couldn't duplicate the problem but replaced the key pad (warranty) as a precaution. It hasn't happened again.