Ballast Fill/ Empty help

[CarlitosAir]

The ballast pumps on my '06 226 (belly, port, SB) work just fine when we are in the water and I press the buttons to fill them up. I can hear the pumps working, and will eventually spit out of the overflow drains. When it comes time to empty them, before leaving the lake I pressed and held the buttons as per usual to empty all 3 tanks, and only the SB side emptied. I noticed the others were full after I had loaded on the trailer and got back home. So I turned by battery switch back on, and and tried emptying one of the full ones, and it worked. When I tried to empty the other full one, no go. So I shut of the switch and came back 15 min later, to retry, and it emptied, but wont work on another tank if I try. All pumps work when I press to fill them, but work intermittently after switching off to empty.

Any advice here as to what might be going on? Are the pumps going out? Breaker switches (Neither the fill/drain fuse buttons on the breaker board were tripped)? Are there relays that might be on their way out?

[GMLIII]

CarlitosAir Check the voltage under your on-screen System Diagnostic page to see if your ballast sensor voltage looks out of wack. On the more model wakeboard boats, these ballast sensors are a major problem. I have a G23 2017 and have replaced all ballast sensors twice already for a total of 6 being replaced thus far.

[CarlitosAir]

its a 2006, so the most screens I have on board are the cell phones we bring with us
Are you referring to the ballast sending units?

[GMLIII]

CarlitosAir Yes

[MN Ryan]

CarlitosAir
Take a look at this thread by TechBeer on the same model year boat. This is probably where I would start.

https://www.planetnautique.com/vb5/f...-in-2006-sv211

[CarlitosAir]

CarlitosAir
Take a look at this thread by TechBeer on the same model year boat. This is probably where I would start.

https://www.planetnautique.com/vb5/f...-in-2006-sv211

this is great! TechBeer sure knows his stuff. Thanks for providing me with this info

[MN Ryan]

Good luck!

CarlitosAir Please make sure to report back when you resolve this issue.

[TechBeer]

Yeah, sort of sounds like the "run dry" module interacting with a flakey float level unit. There are many options to fix it per the link that MN Ryan pointed to. The quick fix is to short the 2 wires at the "float sending" unit together to see if the pumps come on. If you have the "run dry" module rotating those adjustment screws is another option. I still like my "Bypass Plug" but that does require parts and some very basic soldering. I should really product a bunch of these and sell them on Nautique Parts.... :-)

[MN Ryan]

Talk about a niche market!

[CarlitosAir]

Here's my post repair report:
I ended up finding a pair of cheap ballast tank sender units on eBay, and installed them. That way I keep the full functionality of the gauges, and not mess with the run dry module.
If this setup fails again in the future I'll just switch to the override solution listed here by the other awesome members.
Thanks y'all