Mast Wiring

[JT_FF]

Hello,
I believe I have a grounding issue at the base of my mast (2003, Hunter 356). The power connections to the various lights (anchor, steaming, mast) are all cleanly bundeled into a cable that runs down the mast and that connects to a terminal block (as per the manual). However, there is no connection from the Yellow ground wire. I'm wondering if the mast is used as the negative terminal for the lights and if it should be connected to the ground wire on the terminal block?

Any thoughts or pictures would be appreciated.

JT

P.S. A radar unit was retrofitted to the boat and I believe the ground may have been inadvertently removed.

 

[Saillife]

Is something not working?

On my '83 34 I have 5 wires running up mast. VHF cable, anchor, running and deck positive leads and a ground which is common for all the lights.

If everything works I wouldn't worry about it. I would think the mast is not your ground since it's aluminium, not the best conductor due to oxidation.

Brian

 

[JT_FF]

Hi Brian,
I checked the wiring yesterday and the ground wire is connected through the terminal block and everything seems good at the dock. The type of things I'm seeing are multiple sporadic indicator lights on the breaker panel (steaming, anchor, running lights), and resets of my VHF and Radar/chartplotter when turning on the mast lights. My current theory is that there is a bad ground at the light and the coaxial ground connections provide the return path under marginal conditions. I think I have to go up the mast and look.

JT

JT

 

[JT_FF]

Hi All,

I wanted to close off my post. My problem was a poor connection between the ground bus bar behind the radio panel and the bus bar behind the battery switch. The nuts holding the cable were tight, however, the bolt wasn't well connected to the bus bar itself causing sporadic grounding problems.

JT