Bypass capacitor and or resistor in bow light (Flip style on vortex)

[BobJohnson]

My bow light was not working. Tested pwr to light assembly and good. On the assembly are what I believe (not good with this stuff) are a capacitor and resistor. I did not have power coming out of the square item or capacitor. I bypassed these 2 items and just have blk & white wire going straight to light. Works. But these wouldn't be here if not needed. What am I damaging by bypassing?

 

[Scott E]

Led or regular bulb? LEDs need a resistor to limit the current. The black barrel looks to be a capacitor. Good time to replace with an led assembly if it's not already if you don't want to replace the bad resistor or capacitor.

 

[BobJohnson]

regular bulb, not LED. it is a 12v bulb. The resistor said 16v on it. Which I thought was odd. I couldn't see any writing on the capacitor (sq thing... I really need to learn more about this). The whole underside of the light assembly was caked in caulk. I pulled what I could away to check contacts and get it working. So, regular, 12 volt bulb should be OK being direct wired (direct at this point, still going through fuses down line).

 

[Murf'n'surf]

I would just buy another nav light for peace of mind. Bypassing anything electrical in a boat is just silly.

 

[Chuckbig]

I'm guessing it's just a voltage/current regulating circuit. What voltage is the bulb? Just a guess, they may be doing something funky to reduce heat in an encapsulated environment, where heat could be an issue. I too wouldn't bypass this.

 

[BobJohnson]

I've done some research on this. The light is a flip over style made by aqua signal. https://www.amazon.com/Aqua-Signal-Stainless-Hideaway-Navigation/dp/B001B012CS/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_pl_foot_top?ie=UTF8

The light is designed to cut power to the bulb when it is flipped over. That switching component is what I thought was the capacitor. This switch appears to commonly fail and kills power to the light all the time.

From my quick reading on the light, and the number issues I've read about the switch failing going back a few years on other boat brands, I am very disappointed in Chaparral for using this brand light.

I really do like the flip over style. We hardly ever drive at night and my son loves using the bow ladder, so very nice to not have the light sticking up all the time.

I feel better now about bypassing the wires that I know it's a switch. Need to go back and waterproof my connections.

 

[David Analog]

Resistors are rated in resistance (ohms) and wattage. No reason for a resistor to have a voltage rating.
Capacitors (the round black thing) will not pass DC so you can't test a capacitor without an AC source. A capacitor is typically rated in microfarads (or some increment of farad) and voltage.
I know less than zero about this fixture, and can't see much from the photos, but there must be some form of orientation detection (such as a mercury switch?), possibly a switching relay, and the remaining parts would be in support of the orientation detection/switching function power supply. Again, just thin speculation here. But perhaps this will help reason through the circuit.

 

[Floyd]

The black electrolytic capacitor can might be used to smooth or even out the voltage. Does the engine supply choppy voltage? Capacitors work like batteries...absorbing and releasing voltage...which tends to average out the voltage supplied to them. The greater the rating(in micro-farads) of the capacitor, the greater the smoothing effect.