helm wiring, should be simple, i'm not too bright.

[redneck joe]

Decided to put in a fuse block for my three items that need it to replace the two 43 year old circuit breakers.

I want to use old wiring but some became disconnected during my rehab. I have a red, two blacks and two greys. The greys remained hooked up to the nav lights and i just jumped power to the switch so i know what to do there at the moment.

The red power is jumped twice and there are orange jumpers so per the sticky they are power feeds to current circuit breakers to go along with the red jumpers. Not sure how they all go together but since replacing should be fine.

Here is my dilemma - on the two black wires. one for sure is black the other may be black/brown?

When i hit the red with the tester one of the blacks read 26 v?? I'm fairly confident that one went to a circuit breaker, then an orange back to switch. The other black reads standard 12.xx.

So my questions are:

1. HOW AM I GETTING 26V ON A 12 V SYSTEM?
2. WHICH ONE SHOULD FEED THE BUS ON THE FUSE PANEL?

Side note i am not able to get the bilge to kick on using new switch and red and either black. Have not tested the pump but was working fine when i started this mess but will when i get the main lines hooked to the panel

 

[Chris1956]

26 volts implies that you have two 12VDC batteries connected in series. A fishing boat might do that for a trolling motor. If you do not have a trolling motor, you will need to trace the wiring to see how that happened. In the meantime, disconnect one of your batteries and see what voltage you still have.

Boats tend (tend) to have standard wiring colors. Any generic boat wiring diagram should give you those. Black is usually ground. Pink is fuel gauge sender. Red is +12VDC. My horn power is black/yellow, go figure. Blue is instrument lights. Tach sender is grey. That is the minimum stuff you need to power for a smaller OB boat. Boat wiring harnesses often have a large plug in them. After many years these can get corroded. You might look for one.

For smaller boats, I usually run a heavy red and black from the battery to the fuse block, and call it a draw. Jumper all the stuff that needs juice from the fuse block, thru appropriately sized fuses. A single switch that powers the fuse block is a good idea, as you can be sure everything is off.

 

[redneck joe]

Def only one battery, I'm rebuilding from a gut job. Was trying to be frugal with the wiring but I put in a pvc tube for a wire chase so won't be too difficult. Still odd on the voltage with only one battery

 

[redneck joe]

10 guage be enough for those three plus a small stero should I ever decide to do that?

 

[redneck joe]

New twist.


So to appease my brother, I bought a new digital meter. This is the one I was using. Set to v, DC, all read well except listed above.

In frustration I grabbed my analog, with a dam needle and the one that reads 26.xx on digital reads zero on my old school meter

 

[redneck joe]

OK my brother did confirm that I'm not too bright. That dam newfangled stuff is too complicated. It was set on auto so the 'high' reading was auto setting to milivolts. Took off auto and set to volts and all good.

My old school one I know how set to test DC volts, ac volts and ohms. That is all I want to or need to know how to do, don't need menus and crap to scroll thru.

 

[redneck joe]

Anyway, now I'm calmed with a very, very cold beverage in hand I did decide to run new wire anyway. Forgot I need to add a horn so better to have 10 ga than the 12 and 14 that are in there now. Should be able to still use them for the lines out to the devices.

 

[airshot]

Anyway, now I'm calmed with a very, very cold beverage in hand I did decide to run new wire anyway. Forgot I need to add a horn so better to have 10 ga than the 12 and 14 that are in there now. Should be able to still use them for the lines out to the devices.

I understand completely....retired tool maker here....electricity is Greek to me as well, except simple stuff....very simple ! My friend is an electrician and has told me many times, "while you didn't create any shorts or issues, you used twice as much wire as needed".....!!

 

[alldodge]

Boat wiring is pretty simple compared to most other things

 

[redneck joe]

Not the way my mind works. Almost looks like Egyptian wall carvings

 

[Grub54891]

Not the way my mind works. Almost looks like Egyptian wall carvings

Sometimes it gets confusing. Looks Greek to me! lol

 

[dingbat]

Then add this into the mix….welcome to my world…..lol

 

[wklose]

Then add this into the mix….welcome to my world…..lol

View attachment 408856

Logix 500, Im not the only one older than dirt.

 

[dingbat]

Logix 500, Im not the only one older than dirt.

We do a lot of automation upgrades. A lot of the old stuff still out there, mainly because nobody knows how it works anymore. Had a customer a while back asking us to integrate with his GEM80

 

[dwco5051]

Then add this into the mix….welcome to my world…..lol

View attachment 408856

Brings back memories. Back before modern building management systems ran a high school HVAC system on one PLC. Boorlean Logic ladder diagrams programmed in octal. Could not even remember how to turn in on today. Another skill I learned at one time and completely forgot just like differential and integral calculus.

 

[Pmt133]

My whole facility ran modbus up until a year or two ago. There are consoles with electronics dating back to the 70s. We say a little prayer anytime someone works on one as there is both no documents on how they're wired and no one knows how to fix them if something goes wrong.

 

[redneck joe]

We do a lot of automation upgrades. A lot of the old stuff still out there, mainly because nobody knows how it works anymore.

Dat you??

 

[dingbat]

Dat you??

No Rocket science here, although we have two in the family.
Basic electronics theory......Air, Fuel and Spark in internal combustion motors

 

[redneck joe]

Well my new wire and 220 pack of connectors is here, but we are close to 100 heat index and not a stitch of wind so prob have to wait until morning to do much.

 

[redneck joe]

So..., still lost. Can't find anything online that my pea brain can handle.

Can anyone diagram me this:

I've got power to the fuse block. Now how do I complete to the switch and back to the desired unit? It seems like I double up on the terminals at the block on the negative side? So back from the switch to the block on negative and then same terminal back to the unit?