a pictures worth a thousand words
 

po said he knows it was hooked up right cause everything worked!

I guess that's one way to not blow a fuse.

Hahahahahahahaha!

No need to carry aluminum foil there for back up fuses. Smoke is optional.

What's so bad with the pic? It looks good to me ,,,,,seriously Am I missing something

Positive, red, is on the negative buss bar
Negative, black is on fuse bar and hooked upstream of the fuses, no current going through the fuses.

Assuming they used black for negative and red for positive

Everything should get current, just backwards and no fuse protection

Yea. Either way there's nothing going through the fuses. It's all just wired straight to the + & -. Plus that's just a clusterF*** of wires. I can't stand rat nest wiring.

Oh yeah how did I miss that, the way I have mine is just the opposite black on the ground bar and positive on the positive side so the fuses should work?

So maybe mine are hooked up wrong too? Should the red wire be on the screw closes to the black side,?
Let me try to explain
Screw Fuse Screw with positive wire Then screw with black wire

could a po have started with a black/white pos/neg system and only changed the white wire (incorrectly) to red? some boats have been wired that way blk=pos , wht = neg .
electricians show those types of changes with the correct color tape on the last few inches of each end of a single line to prevent mix-ups. My v20 came to me with a bunch of that orange wire also. It took a while to trace all.

red is hot, and should be on the left side, at the bottom in that picture. all the other screws on the left side, other than the "hot in" at the bottom, only purpose is to connect the fuses to the "hot bar" and energize them, no wires should be attached to those screws. the middle run of screws, just to the right of the fuses, are the energized connections coming out of the fuses and all "positive out" leads should be connected there. they are not even used in the picture! the bottom screw on the right, where the po has connected the "positive in" power supply wire is actually the negative grounding buss and is meant to connect all ground wires.

the result of the way this thing is wired is the same as if all the hot wires were just twisted together and if all the negative wires were just twisted together and there wasnt a fuse box at all. everything hooked up to it will turn on but WILL NOT BE FUSE PROTECTED. so if there is a short somewhere instead of a fuse blowing and shutting off the power to the short, the shorted wire will remain energized, get very hot, possibly start sparking, probably do a lot of damage and might even make you jump out of your boat so you can tread water and watch it burn!

Could anyone put up a picture with the same fuse block that's correctly wired? I would like to see it cause now I'm not 100 percent sure I'm right the way I'm hooked up to it

Something so friggin simple is giving me a headache Lol

Don't over think it.... Follow the flow... From batt+ to power distribution strip on one side of fuses, through a fuse, to positive terminal on other side of fuse, from there it goes to a switch on the dash, out of switch to say a bilge pump, back up the the ground bus on the side of the fuse block and back to batt-.....

It's simple as can be as long as you visualize it as a path instead of a bunch of random wires.

EDIT: to be clear I am NOT saying it is wired right... I'm addressing the request for a pic of one wired right...

is it possible that the po just used that as a bus bar and the circiuts are fused at the switch panel??...otherwise it is just wrong....

its just wrong, no fuses at switch panel. i texted him a pic and tried to explain to him, not to be a di ck but because i know he is putting another boat together and he needs it to be safe. he says his stuff is right cause everything worked and when i tried to explain again he said i was wrong cause his gps quit working and he had to change a fuse to make it work again!

alrighty then... as much as i hate all the extra work i think im gonna go through EVERY wire and completely rewire this boat. putting this rig together to take my little boy fishing and i aint gonna find out the hard way! po rewired the whole boat and so will i.

That's ugly!

Couldn't find a pic..

For those of you not envisioning this, it's easier if you just mentally separate the ground buss (black wires on top) and the fuse panel because they are not connected in any way, I prefer to install separate ones if I can, makes the mess a little less.

Then just look at what's left, a bar connecting all the circuits and then some fuses that are not in the circuit at all.

If you are not sure if yours is done correctly a simple test would be to turn everything on, then pull out one fuse at a time & make sure the matching device turns off.

Electrical fires on a boat scare the sh!t out of me guys, I've had an experience or two. :-0

I think mine is right but I'm going yo do that test pull out a fuse But let's make it understandable for us all
There's 3 vertical lines of screws One on the right One on the lef and on line in the middle
What are the middle ones for .?

i still see the pic in the original post but here it is again

The middle ones are where all of the positive accys should be connected... Pos from the battery should be on the other side of the fuses from them and the last strip is for all negative wires.

WOW!!! you guys know a lot about boat wirirng!!!!

so yall will be here right after work tomorrow to help me rewire this thing, right?:sly:

I have an air conditioned shop.... You come to me n bring pizza.

that sounds like such a good idea smoke. too tired to cook, think ill order a pizza. meat lovers or bbq??? hmm, maybe just plain cheese

Peperoni n xtra cheese

Sorry guy but that doesn't make spence
You can't put the positive from the battery on all the left side screws
Only one on the top and the ones under on the same side are for the accessories the middle ones are still empty the left is the ground, I would really like to see a pic of one hooked up correct

I don't know why you keep saying left and right...the picture I see has "top, middle, and bottom"....

The long silver bar on top is the negative bus. You connect the neg battery and all neg (should be black) accessory wires. [ in the picture, they have incorrectly connect +12v to this bus bar]

The long silver bar on the bottom is the positive bus. You connect the +12v feed from the battery (usually RED). IT SHOULD BE FUSED AT THE BATTERY. And I think in this picture the wire is not heavy enough to feed an accessory bus. That depends on what is connected and how far it is from the battery.[ in the picture, they have incorrectly connect negative battery to this bus bar]

The LOADS in this picture are the orange wires. They should be connected to the middle screws. In that way, they will each get power thru their own fuse.

In this picture, none of the loads are fused. They are connected directly to +12v. The fuses in this picture are not being used at all.
Because they have the +12 and neg bus bars reversed, the fuses will never have power because they are connected to a Negative bus.
It cannot be more wrong.

I'm 'fraid it's you that isn't making sense...

Look at the pic with labels that skunkboat posted... If it still doesn't make sense to you then I'm sorry to say but you need to let someone else take care of your electrical system for you..... Not trying to be mean AT ALL..... just honest.

12v Bible For Boats
 

Had similar worries when I got my v. removed a lot of old wiring that went nowhere, cut off or cleaned up corroded ends, new terminals with heat shrink n seal and changed up from glass fuses to ato/atc fuses in a blue seas panel. The 12 Volt Bible For Boats (latest edition) was a help.

energized that crappy system yesterday and went to testing. everything came on and worked except the anchor light. looked at and touched all th wires as best as i could, everywhere that i could. everything actually looked good and nothing was warm, except the anchor light hot wire. it was pretty warm. pulled those two wires. they were both black and very stiff, like automotive wire. sure enough, near the light on the hot wire was a connector where the wire had been spliced. could see corrosion and evidence of arcing. replaced those two with tinned wires. took a closer look at all other wiring and it all looks correct and in good shape. heading out there soon to install my blue seas fuse box, solder and heat shrink all connections and clean up the wire routing. then just add my gps, vhf, second bilge pump and a couple other acc and this phase of the project should be done by lunch tomorrow.

I have a 1977 and bought a new negative buss to mount behind the dash and a new positive with spade fuses buss and intend to run the negative black to that buss then the positive red to that buss from the battery and distribute a negative to each electric device from the buss and after the fuse, a red + to each device so it goes through the fuse on the positive, red side. That's the way I remember my big sailboat was wired and I hate those round glass tube fuses. Modern spade fuses are much easier. If my thinking is backward let me know. I have not crawled into the cuddy yet to check it out, just know I want different at this point. I chose to have a separate negative buss which I'll mount and bring one heavy wire from battery to it and then a separate with spade fuses positive (red) buss with a heavy red wire from the battery. From that I will run a black to one side of a switch or device and after the fuse a red to the other side of same switch or device. It's like a loop and the fuse goes into the red side of the loop. I'm quite content with two separate busses unless I've completely forgotten how to do this.

basic diagram of what I plan to do
 

This diagram is how I plan to do mine. The wires in place I will trace with power source and meter/probe, label then run from battery to the busses forward then to each device from the busses through the fuses.https://www.google.com/search?q=wiri...RkS-LlJkyHM%3A

a simple diagram of what I'll do
 

This is a clear and simple diagram of what I'll do...if I can upload the photo correctly

Usually... a new fuse panel has a neg bus already attached.

search for the thread "new dash ideas" or Tag search "Dash" or "electrical"
You'll get some good info, pix, and ideas

Also might want to wire in a float switch directly to + side of battery with an inline fuse, so bilge pump is active even with the selector switch in the off position.

electric wiring
 

I had decided not to put a battery switch inline as some haven't with one battery but remembered you can add a simple switch which mounts to the negative battery post and which the negative cable attaches to it. When you want it off to the boat just turn the knob on top and it breaks the connection. Cheap, simple and better than leaving something on inadvertently when you leave the boat for a while and it's not in a slip, etc.