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Testing an alarm buzzer bf75

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potterswheelnc

New member
Hi there. I have a bf75 outboard that isn't sounding the usual buzz when I turn on the engine. The engine runs fine with the green light on and the engine is peeing fine but the red overheat light comes on right away. I'm not sure if the red light is an indicator of a bad alarm. I just did a 200/hr service and replaced the prop. I did tap on the light and it did flicker and went out for a moment so it may be electrical. Is there a way of testing the buzzer? I removed it and got continuity with a multimeter but I'm not sure what that tells me. Any help would be appreciated.
 
Since you have it loose, you can take 12v and connect to the leads and it should sound if it is good. Positive to the black/yellow lead and negative to the yellow green.

The light operates from a ground of the red lead from the temperature switch when the engine overheats. You can remove the lead from the temperature switch to see if the switch is bad. If you remove it and the light stays on, you have either a bad light module or you are picking up a ground in one of the connectors (due to corrosion) or the wire is contacting ground somewhere.

If you can disconnect the red lead somewhere near the light and the light continues to operate, that should limit where you have to look. If the light goes out, trace the red wire and check all the connectors that it goes through and examine the pins associated with the red wire. Look closely for corrosion.

After all that....if you tapped on it and it went out, then there may be issues inside the light module (if that is what you have).

Mike
 
Thanks Mike. The buzzer works when I hooked it up to 12v so I will trace the red wire and test the sensor. The other day I did notice some rust on the battery terminals so I wouldn't be surprised if it was corrosion. I started the boat on Thursday and the buzzer didn't sound but the red light was off. I didn't let the engine run long but it seemed ok. I will let you know what I find out.

-Andrew



hondadude said:
Since you have it loose, you can take 12v and connect to the leads and it should sound if it is good. Positive to the black/yellow lead and negative to the yellow green.

The light operates from a ground of the red lead from the temperature switch when the engine overheats. You can remove the lead from the temperature switch to see if the switch is bad. If you remove it and the light stays on, you have either a bad light module or you are picking up a ground in one of the connectors (due to corrosion) or the wire is contacting ground somewhere.

If you can disconnect the red lead somewhere near the light and the light continues to operate, that should limit where you have to look. If the light goes out, trace the red wire and check all the connectors that it goes through and examine the pins associated with the red wire. Look closely for corrosion.

After all that....if you tapped on it and it went out, then there may be issues inside the light module (if that is what you have).

Mike
Click to expand...
Thanks Mike! The buzzer is working
 
So it turns out that it was a bad connection at the battery. I cleaned all of the connections to the battery (some were rusty) and the connection was a little loose so I tightened the hell out of the wingnuts and success! Sometimes you forget to check the most common issue and jump to the complicated "fix". Lesson learned on my part. Thanks Mike for the feedback.
 
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