a pictures worth a thousand words

[Lance Pearson]

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.

[Lance Pearson]

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.