About six weeks ago, our Village
Marine Stowaway
watermaker (circa 2005) started having issues. The master control panel’s buttons stopped working. You couldn’t auto flush the system or start the low pressure or high pressure pumps.
After discussion with the technician who originally installed the unit in this
boat for the previous owner and with the technician who
repairs these units at the company (Parker) that bought Village
Marine years ago, we determined the
control panel board was bad. The board hadn’t been made in 10 years. The replacement for it is $2400.
A little investigation with a multi-meter and the
wiring diagram in the original manual revealed that crossing the
power wires still allowed the LP
pump, the HP
pump, and the fresh
water flush solenoid to
work.
I ordered a bank of three switches and a waterproof cover from Home Depot for $25, made a
wiring harness from
parts already on the
boat, and mounted the switches on some old starboard I had laying around. A total of two hours of labor and, presto, our
watermaker works again! Granted, it may be a bit Frankenstein-ish to some people... but it works.
John