Mystery blower on Beneteau 50

[Bene505]

OK, here's the mystery. We have a blower in our engine compartment. We have no idea how to turn it on. All the switches don't seem to turn it on, whether at the helm or the nav station.

I'm wondering if it is heat activated. Or maybe it only runs when the engine is running, so we don't hear it over the engine. Or maybe there's a switch somewhere we don't know about.

Maybe it's a 1/4 turn of the starboard winch, followed by turning the anchor light on for 5 seconds and then throwing her over to port quickly?

I'd really like to keep it on for awhile after running the engine. The engine-warmed air rises up to the cockpit and makes it smell, well, like an engine. With the blower on, we could keep things smelling nicer until that convection had stopped.

I tried tracing the wires, but they go behind the insulation or through the wall. I'm planning to dig deeper, but someone may know if there's a switch somewhere to turn it on.

Any Beneteau owners know the location of the secret blower switch, if any?

There's a picture here, but the file is 30Meg. Best wait until I edit with a smaller picture tonight.

BIG HONKING PICTURE

Regards

[xort]

have you tried asking bene?

have you turned on every switch and then put a meter to the hot leg to see if there is power getting to the blower?

you could rig a temporary wire from a good 12 volt source and see if the motor will run with a known good feed.

are there breakers behind the switches?

[bubb2]

On a lot of the big Benne's the engine room blower is connected to engine start switch. Turn your start key on and the fan should whirl away!

[lbdavis]

"Mystery blower on Beneteau 50"

With all the talk going on in "Living Aboard", I thought beneteau finally came up with a good sales pitch. hehehe.

[Faster]

Originally Posted by bubb2

On a lot of the big Benne's the engine room blower is connected to engine start switch. Turn your start key on and the fan should whirl away!

Ditto that.. our friends' 2002 Bene 36.7 is set up that way.. blower's on when the engine's on. An improvement would be to add an off-delay timer to keep the blower running a few minutes after shutdown to remove the heated air.

[Bene505]

Thanks for the replies. Rep points on the way. (Yes this could almost fit into that other thread.)

I'm planning to test using the connections that are right near the blower. I'll report back what I find out.

Asking Beneteau - great idea.

The off-delay timer would be a great idea. A relay and a 555 timer would do the job. I know just how to do it so there would be zero battery drain when the blower switches off. And maybe a switch to set normal operation versus delay, for those times when we are below.

This will probably be post-launch, since there'S so much else to do.

[christyleigh]

On my previous C320 there was a switch for the blower on the pedistal but it only worked when the key was On..... Beep...Beep....Beep or On with the engine running - nothing automatic. So since the engine compartment was right next to the aft berth with its associated heat I changed the hot to feed from the main breaker box and added a switch to run the blower when I wanted which was only for anchoring after a long motor.

[sailortjk1]

Originally Posted by bubb2

On a lot of the big Benne's the engine room blower is connected to engine start switch. Turn your start key on and the fan should whirl away!

Ditto, wired directly to the ignition switch on our 2001.

[kdg_dean_austin]

Yep, same here on our 2001 361. Our surveyor even went so far as put this in his findings:

3.Though not a requirement, the surveyor recommends a cockpit mounted switch to control the blower. At this time, the blower is powered up by the engine ignition switch. The blower operation is not required at all times.

[Bene505]

Appreciate the great information. Thank you.

On the boat today, I did 2 tests.

1) The blower did not run when the ignition switch was on. Beep-beep-beep and no blower.

2) I hot-wired the blower directly to the 12v batteries. It ran but was pretty loud. It sounded a bit like gravel, as if the bearings were shot.

Maybe the PO disconnected it somewhere because it was running loud. But if so, why not disconnect it at the unit, with the easy disconnect plugs right there next to it.

Next steps: 1) Check to make sure there's no switch at the helm that I am missing. 2) With my multimeter, verify no 12v is getting to the blower. 3) Then try again to trace the wires after they start going behind things.

And 4) Guess I need a new blower. 3 bolts and it's off the wall, then removing the flexible tube from it. After I get it out, I can see what make it is. (And since this doesn't have to be done pre-launch, this is not super high priority right now. I have a spalding keel to fix, a rear rubrail area to fix, and seacocks to replace, among other things.)