Electrical issue

[twalker H260]

As the others have mentioned white wires are usually reserved for 120v neutral, you should have black 120v at the breaker panel and you should also have green 120v safety ground as well. All the same size (or nearly) white makes sense for the 120v system - just like your house.

Watch you don't get the 120v black line wires and 12v negative (ground) wires confused. It sounds like you still have to locate the 12v negative buss.

The above mentioned manual indicates 12v ground were always black - but the 12v positive could be either red OR WHITE! (Note on schematic p26)

This could lead to some dangerous confusion between 120v neutral and 12v positive!

If the 120v side has a problem you could get continuity through your neutral(120v) to the safety ground and then to your negative ground at your engine or bonding ground.

 

[Joe Roc]

As the others have mentioned white wires are usually reserved for 120v neutral, you should have black 120v at the breaker panel and you should also have green 120v safety ground as well. All the same size (or nearly) white makes sense for the 120v system - just like your house.

Watch you don't get the 120v black line wires and 12v negative (ground) wires confused. It sounds like you still have to locate the 12v negative buss.

The above mentioned manual indicates 12v ground were always black - but the 12v positive could be either red OR WHITE! (Note on schematic p26)

This could lead to some dangerous confusion between 120v neutral and 12v positive!

Good luck.

Ugh!! I'll certainly be most careful. I've examined the AC side and all looks to be in order. I've followed those particular white wires back to the neg buss that I know of. There are one or two black wires on that buss too. But not enough to account for all of my DC components. This leads me to believe that hidden somewhere there's another buss. I'll be going to Connectict tomorrow to continue with this. Unless I get called into work after the nightmare in Boston. It may be all hands on deck for all local PD state wide. :-(

Terrible this marathon thing.

 

[twalker H260]

First I had heard about this! (Boston) Be safe.

 

[Joe Roc]

Hi everyone. Thanks for all of your help. It's both embarrassing and a relief to have finally fixed this problem. As it turns out it was a simple matter. There was nothing in the way of a wire from the neg buss to the neg post on the battery. This is very strange as there is no evidence of there ever having been a wire at all but yet the system worked fine until last summer. At any rate I installed a new neg buss and sent a # 8 wire to the neg post of the battery. The battery is then grounded to the engine block. Here's what was truly messed up. I found that all of my negative wires were WHITE!! My positive wires were either black or red. I assume that the PO must have rewired the boat at some point and thought he was rewiring his house? Any way I'm not going to mess with it any further except to mark all the white wires with black tape to indicate that they're in fact neg wires. Of course this is counter intuitive as this would indicate a hot wire in a house. I made a diagram etc. what a pain. At least every thing is working as it should. Thanks again for all the advice and help. This is a great network of knowledgeable sailors!!!

 

[anchorclanker]

I had a Bounder motorhome wired like that, using white wires for DC grounds, and blacks and reds for hots. Apparently its rather common on RV's, and as they often are built with a lot in common with small boats (junk appliances and electrical panels/switches), it makes sense they would wire a boat like that. Though I would like to brain the guy bloody who came up with that practice.

If your really want fun, most DC wiring in aircraft is ALL white wires, hot and grounds both. You use the tag numbers at the terminal to trace the wire to the opposite end. If the tags are still there, lol. Otherwise you use a test light or meter.

However, I doubt I am the only one here trying to understand how the buss was grounded if there was no wire. Did the panel mount in a metal base that was grounded? Are there remains of a wire that smoked itself? There had to be some connection beforehand.

 

[JerryA]

I had a 73 Mustang once that had a bad ground from engine to chassis. As a result the accelerator cable began acting as the cable, until it melted one day on my way home.

JerryA

 

[anchorclanker]

I recall when I was about 13, I was helping this friends brother swap engines in his car. He thought all the ground straps around the engine compartment were stupid so he removed them all. I dont remember what all problems he had, but the throttle was one of them. Seems the heater burned up some wire trying to find a ground too.

 

[Lee Coller]

You might want to check that the PO at least used marine grade wire (stranded/tinned). If standard household wiring was used (solid wires) you could be in for more surprises.

 

[Joe Roc]

The PO did use marine wire thank goodness. As for any evidence of a ground I couldn't find any. But I think I know what happened now. A few years ago I replaced the prop shaft. I did it all myself but hired the yard to couple it to the engine after she splashed. I also had them replace the worn engine mounts. I have to believe that when they did this they damaged the grounding system. The DC would work and then mysteriously not work. The bonding straps for lightning protection were all broken too. So I also repaired those. Of course I knew of none of this because when I pay a pant load of cash to have work done I guess I just assume it was done properly!!! Needless to say we're moving to a different boat yard this year!

 

[Doc_holiday]

Glad it's resolved. Funny in your original post you said there was no wire from the negative buss to the battery negative and your first question was "this can't be right, can it?"

I can't think of any reason you wouldn't do that. Your gut was right on. Learn to trust it.