Hey Selene Friends:
So.....I had a strange issue today that I thought I'd share with you for your edification and amusement.
I noticed this morning when we pulled the anchor that when I activated my Keypower stabilizers I didn't hear the usual slight pitch change when the hydraulics pressurize. I didn't pay much attention to it. We had perfectly flat seas all day. However, after we got the anchor up and got underway, I noticed a couple of things:
1. My stabilizer control display shows me the angle of my stabilizer fins (it's the older black-and-white Keypower touch screen). Both my stabilizer fins were angled off at a fairly extreme angle--like 18-23 degrees and they weren't moving. Strange. And I noticed that the boat was listing, which would make sense with the stabilizer fins pushed way off center.
2. When I looked at the stabilizer actuators from inside the boat, it was obvious that the panel display was correct. They were pushed way off center. When I went into the engine room, I noticed that the lever on the hydraulic valve that drives the stabilizers was not "pushed in", in its normally activated position, and there was very little hydraulic system pressure. There was nothing else running in the hydraulic system. Not good. What's going on?
My first thought was that the electric solenoid that activates the hydraulic valve for the stabilizer had failed, but what threw me off was the fact that I could see that the stabilizer fins were way off center. I expected that with no hydraulic pressure, they would tend to center themselves just because of the water pressure on the fins as we were underway. I was wrong. I'll explain in a minute.
In the end, the problem was the simplest issue that I considered right at first. There's a little electric solenoid that activates the hydraulic valve, and it had failed. I've had one fail before and I have a couple of spares on board. Fortunately, it's also pretty easy to change out, and when I did, things got back to normal. However, I was still puzzled by why the fins were so off-center with no hydraulic pressure.
I emailed my friend and tech support guy at Keypower and asked if he could talk me through why this happened. He did. I won't try to reproduce it all here, but the short answer is that the "steering" valve that directs the pressurized oil into the cylinders to move the fins left or right was opened by the computer because it was trying to get the fins back to center. But without any hydraulic pressure (because of the failed solenoid) to work with, the open steering valve basically worked against us.
Lesson learned for me.
However, another reason I wanted to post this is to just call out for kudos Dean Yule and Keypower (part of Kobelt, and just very recently now sold to TwinDisc!). With so many companies, you ask for technical support and if you get an answer at all, it's a week later and it's just the bare minimum of help to get you going. I've been so impressed with Dean and Keypower because he calls me back quickly and he takes the time to walk me through both troubleshooting and understanding so that I know my boat's systems better. It's too bad there aren't more manufacturer in this business that offer the level of support that Keypower does.
Bottom line: I'm up and running again and I understand my stabilizer system better because of the support from Dean. I can't recommend him and Keypower highly enough.
Mark Tilden
Selene 60 "Koinonia"