battery switch power in 'off' position

[duke3478]

Installed a Blue Sea 9001e today, per instructions. Batt 1 pos cable to terminal one, batt 2 pos cable to terminal two, batt 1 neg to batt 2 neg terminal, to engine ground. Engine positive to common terminal.

like this:

Here's where it gets weird. With the switch in the 'off' position, I expected to have no electrical power at all, but my tilt motor clicks (not quite running) my spotlight plugged into cig lighter outlet comes on dimly, and blower/bilge run, but very slowly. Everything in the 1 and 2 positions is normal, tilt runs, starter turns, light is bright, etc.

Basically I seem to have a very low voltage coming through, with the switch off. Have I done something wrong, or could the switch be allowing a trickle of juice to come through? Is this a malfunction or something engineered in?

Thanks in advance, I always get the best help on the forum. You guys always steer me right.

 

[Fireman431]

Re: battery switch power in 'off' position

Do you have any other smaller red wires running from your battery + terminal?

It sounds like you either have a small power feed to the fuse block giving you a little power, but not enough to run your equipment or you have power and a crappy ground to your fuse block.

 

[Lyle29464]

Re: battery switch power in 'off' position

If you have a bilge pump, stereo, etc hooked to a battery it is feeding back through the dash. switches. If nothing is hooked up ahead of the switch it is bad.

 

[hrdwrkingacguy]

Re: battery switch power in 'off' position

Something wired across the switch basically creates a voltage drop and a completed circuit...if you have like 7vdc(or something like that from C to ground) you have something wired in series...

 

[duke3478]

Mystery Solved...

Mystery Solved...

dbl post

 

[duke3478]

Mystery Solved...

Mystery Solved...

Thanks for the replies, and Lyle was right. The clue was in my original post.

My spotlight plugged into the cig lighter is actually meant to be cordless. Its battery crapped out some time ago, but it works when plugged in. But it seems the spotlight battery does, however, hold a very small charge and was feeding back into the system thru the cig lighter socket.

Unplugged that, and all was dead as expected.

 

[hrdwrkingacguy]

Re: Mystery Solved...

Re: Mystery Solved...

That must be a hell of a battery to make that stuff do that...