PN Community help pls! No power to 2004 206 dash. I have just a few days to fix.

[SilentSeven]

Here the TL;DR - I replaced the steering cable on my 206 and now I have no power to the dash. The keypad won't illuminate, the boat won't go into accessory mode and its effectively dead. If if flip the main power switch to 'bilge'. the circuit works. Everything was fine before cable replacement.

The cable replacement forces you to take part the dog house which has the PME and all the cable bundles. The replacement also requires you to feed the cable into the thru hull in the dog house which of course is where the battery cables come from. Effectively...you are stuffing a big steering cable right thought the heart of the main electrical area of the boat.

The "diagnosis" problem is there is no clear procedure on what locations to check and what the expected outcomes based on various master switch states. There is also no published master schematic for the boat....there are bit parts but they really don't paint a good picture of entire system. For example, there is a hot feed to the back of the PME. I would sorta think this should be hot when the you flip on the master switch...but there is nothing that says indeed that's the case.

Here's what I checked so far:
- cleaned battery cable ends. Battery is relatively new and charged.
- verified no PME fuses are popped.
- verified that main 40A inline fuse is good
- checked power to PME main in, no power to main hot regardless of main switch setting
- searched the archives for solutions. I see a few with similar problems but no one has ever posted a follow-up or fix (really?)

I would really appreciate any ways to methodically check the main system segments with test points and expected results.

Next Sunday we leave on a 5 day boat camping trip.....gotta get her fixed by then. :/

[SilentSeven]

After a bunch of reading, I'm going to start by verifying I have 12v in/out on the master toggle. I can't tell how the power arrives to the toggle (schematic / bundle) but it seem that you must have power there.

Best guess so far on power up sequence is:

1. there should always be 12v in on the master toggle. switching the toggle to 'all on' then powers 12v out.
2. 12v from the toggle 'all on' powers the keypad (unclear which of the 4 leads is powered - there's a red/orange/black/green. Red's always a good candidate)
3. keypad is a coded/intelligent switch that designates if the boat is in no-op (code fail) / accessory / ignition mode.
4. ? keypad tells the PME what banks of circuits to turn on based on keypad mode? Very unclear here...but I think there must be some function in the PME besides just relays and breakers.....

Working from this diagram...better than any of the 2004 diagrams https://www.planetnautique.com/Corre...INGDIAGRAM.pdf

[bturner]

I wish I could help more but I'm not familiar with this boat. As such that leaves me with the typical electrical troubleshooting plan which would be.....

Eliminate stupid. Let's step back and see if anything simple got missed.

• Disconnect all the connections to the battery(ies), reconnect all the connections, reset all the breakers and test.
• Emergency lanyard
  • Is it still connected?
  • Does it look like you could have damaged it while changing the cable?
  • Can you pull it out and test it with a meter or jumper it to eliminate it as a problem?
• Power switch - These go bad all the time and sometimes at the worst possible moment.
  • I'd start with checking power at each post in each position.
  • Try operating the switch slowly and see if you get and fluctuations in operation.
  • Check for loose connections, loose cable ends, damaged cables.
• Missed cables
  • Time to look again at the battery connections to see if you missed any cable connections.
  • If you have a dual battery set up make sure you have them connected correctly and completely. I actually did this on my last boat. I somehow missed attaching the hot from the house circuit to the switch. Pure panic mode until I walked away for 15 minutes and looked at it again and saw the cable sitting there.

Past stupid you're looking for anything that's changed or you've damaged along the way. It worked before so something had to have changed.

• Did you disconnect any cables or connectors in the during the installation? If so it's time to pull them back apart, examine them, clean them if needed and reset them.
• Did you have any areas where you could have stress a cable or connector? This sounds likely based on your post. Time to go back and really look at those locations. You were under the dash were the keypad is and the PDU so this is an area that I would focus on.
• You should have 2 bus bars (a hot and ground bar) under the dash that feed the dash. Check both of those to ensure the cables are still connected and tight.
• While you're there and with the power switch on, check for power at the bus bar. Do you have power? If so, it's something past basic connections, if not, time to run down the other side of the cable which should be the battery side. Do you have power there? If so something is open between those 2 points which on my current boat is the power switch.

I know this probably isn't what you're looking for but that's the best I have without being in the boat. Right now I'm going with switch or disconnected cable under the dash with an outside chance the lanyard got yanked.

Best of luck with this today.

[SilentSeven]

Thanks for being a sounding board. Need that right now. I did do a few things on your list but didn't list them...including:

- connection reset / first thing I did. Effectively tried to 'reboot' the boat. / no love
- lanyard check / pulled it, worked the toggle, reset / no love
- main throttle check / wiggled and confirmed neutral.
- general molex connector check / went back under the dash and doghouse...check everything for tightness / no love.

I have a slight update to my working theory that I'll test a bit later this AM. It's effectively assuming the steering cable pull "yanked" the main dash power wire that runs from the battery post to the toggle. They are both in the same area. After studying (more) the limited schematics, here's what I think is the revised power up sequence.

1. The master toggle is fed by a ~12 gauge wire from the battery post that runs in the bilge, through the doghouse hole and finally to the toggle. I don't think the 'main positive cable' powers the dash at all; it feeds the starter solenoid. It's this 12 gauge power line that I think got fubared.
2. The toggle cable 'all on' turns on a ~ 12 gauge red/black hot line that runs to the positive post on the PME (PDU). This is how the PME is powered up by main toggle switch. I think this is correct from looking again at the limited schematics available...one schematic shows this line out of the toggle and to the PME. I recognize the red/black wire in the bundle. Once the PME is powered, this is then how the keypad is powered.
3. The keypad then operates as the coded switch that designates if the boat is in no-op (code fail) / accessory / ignition mode. The keypad sends signals back to the PME saying what circuits should power up based on the selected run mode. I did try test power at the keypad yesterday and got nothing.

My best clue is that right now, I get no power at the 12v PME lug in step two regardless of toggle position. I think that's wrong. I still have no explanation for why the bilge circuit runs. That part doesn't fit well into this narrative.

Plan for this AM is to pull the toggle and try a continuity test from the battery hot lead to the toggle. If that tests OK, then I'll try a continuity test from the toggle to the PME box. And finally test the toggle itself (it would be odd it died as it's not anywhere near the cable pull but who knows....).

My worst case scenario is that one or two wires in the PME harness bundle got yanked, are messed up in the harness to PME plug and thus not connecting to the PME. The PME plug is a ~ 40 wire to two main harness feeds monstrosity. I have some fear of this as (1) I had a horn problem that was resolved by repositioning this bundle and (2) you have to move/wiggle/pull this bundle when you push the drivers kickboard out of the way when you pull the steering cable. Hopefully one of the items above expose the problem...chasing a problem here will be difficult as you have reverse engineer the harness to locate a testing point in the molex systems for each plug wire.

[jpwhit]

Your last post is correct about how the power feeds to the PME. The large battery cable just goes to the starter. If your main power toggle is like the one in my 200, where up is everything on, middle is everything off, and down is bilge only. The you probably pulled spade terminal off the power toggle switch for the wire that goes from the switch to the PME. There is another wire coming off that switch that just powers the bilge pumps.

[SilentSeven]

Update: So it's alive.... I was pulling apart various items to inspect as I was working towards removing the toggle switch (uh...freaking hard to access!) and randomly decided to check power at the PME lug. 12v was present now with the toggle up. Punched in the code and dash lit up.

Annoyingly, I have no idea what "fixed" the problem as I was touching all sorts of stuff around the battery feed and the toggle area. I am now pretty convinced that something in the main power related to feeding the toggle/PME got messed up. I think I'll order up a replacement toggle and swap just in case.

I'm also going to take and post a few pictures to log a little knowledge that might help someone else. There are other threads with this same problem but no helpful follow-ups....will try to rectify that.

[MN Ryan]

Glad you got her running! That's stressful.

[SilentSeven]

Thanks MN Ryan .... I agree. Weird electrical stuff is the worst IMO. Very difficult to sort. I feel fortunate that the boat is back again.

Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk

[NautiqueJeff]

Very happy you have it fixed (hopefully). I have a very similar problem with my 2000 Sport Nautique. The troubleshooting on that one goes on....

[bturner]

Part of my motto in life has been "I'd rather be lucky than good". You can be as good as they come at something but without some luck the odds of failure are immense. Glad to hear you're back up and running.

[jmo]

If you removed the dash, did you first reach under and unplug the wiring plug to the back of the keypad? I forgot to do that when upgrading my old 196 to Stargazer and I bent the receiver which caused all sorts of the electrical gremlins until I put in a new keypad. That was an expensive mistake on my part.

sounds like you have a loose connection by virtue of jostling stuff around got it working again, I’d keep looking as in my experience problems that go away on their own come back on their own…

[SilentSeven]

NautiqueJeff - sorry to hear that. Love to learn more...does that boat use the same keypad/PME system? Debugging the keypad system feels like an area we can definitely try to develop some more board knowledge.

bturner - I very much feel lucky and I'll take every iota I get!!!

jmo - agree....that's what concerning. Until you can pinpoint root cause, you never know. I actually never removed the dash during the cable install - it's not required. I only worked under the dash where all where many of the main harness connections are.