Switch Panel and 3 way switch wiring from scratch

[turtle1173]

Hi all,
I've been completely redoing my 1971 16' Starcraft Super Sport. It never had a switch panel, everything just ran to the battery. So I'm doing it right this time and putting in a switch panel. I've also put a positive and negative bus bar under the console. This is fairly new stuff to me but I'm good at following directions. So I have some questions and just need a little reassurance that my thinking is correct..

1. The switch panel (pic below) is labeled with a positive and negative side. Then there is a red wire that comes off of each switch. I plan to run the positive and negative wires directly to the switch panel. Is this correct? Then for each device, I have the black wire going to ground and the positive wire going to each switch. Is that correct?

2. The 3 way switch is confusing to me. There are 4 connection spots. See pics below. Where it says "ground for light" and "+12 volt batt", am I just running wires from my bus bar to those terminals (+ and -)? For the top switch, is this supposed to be the front navigation light, the back anchor light, or both? Same question with the bottom switch. Unsure how this is supposed to go.

Thank you so much!

 

[UncleWillie]

Question #1, Yes, you are correct!

Question #2, Yes! Almost!
The "Ground for light" will connect to the NEG Buss bar. This is only used to power the internal light within the switch.
The "12v Batt" should be the center of the other 3 terminals. It will connect to the POS Bus bar.
The Top of the three terminals will power the Stern, White Anchor Light.
The Bottom of the three terminals will power the Red/Green Bow Lights.
The top and bottom terminals should have a Diode connecting the two.
This permits the Wht/Stern light to come on when selecting the Bow lights, but the Bow lights to remain OFF when selecting the Anchor light only.

Note: Toggle switches operate reverse from expected.
Flipping the switch UP connects the Middle and BOTTOM terminals, and vise versa.

 

[turtle1173]

Ok, I finally got around to working on this today. I connected it just like you said. Unfortunately when I flip the switch up, the anchor light comes on. When I flip it down, only the nav lights come on. Is this diode connecting the two something I should be able to see? The lights seem to solely work independent of each other.

Thank you for the help

 

[Grandad]

Ok, I finally got around to working on this today. I connected it just like you said. Unfortunately when I flip the switch up, the anchor light comes on. When I flip it down, only the nav lights come on. Is this diode connecting the two something I should be able to see? The lights seem to solely work independent of each other.

Thank you for the help

Hi Turtle. The diode is necessary with this kind of switch. It joins the red/green nav lights to the white anchor light. What you want is for the nav light power to feed power to the anchor light so that whenever your nav lights are on, the anchor light is also on. A diode allows current flow in one direction only, so you can have just the anchor light on without the nav lights coming on if you use a diode. It must be rated for the voltage and current that it is expected to carry and of course, the polarity of how you connect it is important. If you get the polarity backwards, the light function will be reversed. Otherwise it's just a straightforward connection between the top and bottom terminals.

If you were to purchase a double pole switch (7 terminals), you could dispense with the diode. The diode actually adds some voltage drop and theoretically causes your anchor light to be slightly dimmer than it would otherwise be. Both types of switches need a "center off" position for the switch handle/toggle where no lights are turned on. - Grandad