Hi all,

I have a newly-acquired 2000 Carver 396/Diesel, and was only able to obtain the owner's manual for the 2002 model (from Carver), with a note that not much/if anything changed between 2000-2002. My question is about the Bilge Fans.

There are 4 separate bilge fans, each with their own circuit breaker. There is also a "bilge fan master" switch. Curiously, though, the 4 bilge fans are not wired independently, but rather ganged through fan #1 (i.e., fan #1 has to be on to allow any fan to be on). To be sure I'm explaining this well:
* With the Fan Master "on", and all 4 Bilge Circuit Breakers "off", no fans run. As expected.
* With the Fan Master "on", and only Fan #1 Breaker "on", then only number #1 fan runs. As expected.
* With the Fan Master "on", and only Fan #2 Breaker "on", **NO** fan runs. This is also the case for fan #3 "on" or #4 "on". This seems strange, because the fans would seem to be independent of one another. The wiring diagram in the owner's manual (different year), shows the fans as independent.
* With the Fan Master "on", and Fan #1 "on", and Fan #2 "on", then **BOTH** fans run. This is expected, but in contrast to the point above, it indicates the fans are ganged through Fan #1.
* Obviously with the Fan Master "off", no fan runs. With the Fan Master, what would be the value of ganging the fans through Fan #1???

The issue is that the Fan #1 circuit breaker has to carry the load of all 4 fans (because of the ganging), and it pops when all four fans are running. Any combination of 3 fans (e.g., #1, 2, 3, or #1, 2, 4, etc...always requiring #1 to be on), will run without problem.

Before I re-wire this back to having the fans independent, I wanted to check to see if there is any reason for the ganging, or if there folks that have similar ganged wiring.

Thanks
--Jim