Two identical antennas on separate systems failed inside 20 days

[kraljmase111]

Personally I would be surprised if the systems are incorrectly installed, although it is of course possible but will have been inspected after installation to ensure it met the requirements. A more likely cause of the issues is probably some unusual failure mode or intermittent/transient effect.

Good luck chasing it down though, it will be an interesting and informative job!

Normally, I wouldn't be suspicious of the installation but this yacht left the yard unfinished and so far I have found several things that were definitely not completed.

Just the other day, when looking at the GMDSS power supply board, I found damaged/burned negative DC output terminal for the MF/HF antenna. It is a bolt and nut type of connector. Bolt was tightened well so I suspect the damaged might have been due to poor soldering joint quality. But this would be manufacturing defect.

However, after that I checked tightness of all the nuts and ALL of them were semi-loose (about 6 or 8 terminals in total). When commissioning electrical system, I think one of the basic checks would be the one of verifying connections tightness.

 

[G7RUX]

Normally, I wouldn't be suspicious of the installation but this yacht left the yard unfinished and so far I have found several things that were definitely not completed.

Just the other day, when looking at the GMDSS power supply board, I found damaged/burned negative DC output terminal for the MF/HF antenna. It is a bolt and nut type of connector. Bolt was tightened well so I suspect the damaged might have been due to poor soldering joint quality. But this would be manufacturing defect.

However, after that I checked tightness of all the nuts and ALL of them were semi-loose (about 6 or 8 terminals in total). When commissioning electrical system, I think one of the basic checks would be the one of verifying connections tightness.

Oh, that’s very much not ok! GMDSS systems should be very much reliable for obvious reasons.
I presume the heat damaged connection is a soldered ring terminal which is then bolted down? If so then the soldered joint would need to be exceptionally poor to heat like that. I tend to try to avoid soldered joints in that way for just this reason but still, I would be very wary of this at this point.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Thank you, kind sir, for sharing you expertise.

Basically, I should do the detailed checks of the entire system to make sure the installation is properly done but before that I should gather info on how the installation should be done in the first place.

This will be a time-consuming task which I will most likely not do during my contract here, about 45 days more to go but at least now I know which direction to take. Many thanks once again!

Maybe you can line up an authorized SAILOR service center to come aboard and fully troubleshoot the system. It will be hard to do later when it sails into the sunset. The stuff I work on never leaves the concrete pad it was installed on so getting access and time to sort it out has never been impossible. Sometimes new stuff simply gets installed wrong. It takes only one wrong connection or mislabeled cable.

 

[G7RUX]

The installation, being GMDSS certified, will have been signed off by a certified engineer so it might be an idea to get in touch with them since any issue with such systems can lead to A Lot Of Trouble (tm) in certain circumstances.

 

[kraljmase111]

Thank you, I will see what I can do.