Pontoon Boat & Deck Boat Forum

Hi all- I know enough about electricity to get in trouble... for this reason I thought it would be easier to get a new harness and start fresh on my boat, rather than try to figure out what the previous owners had done.

I ordered a new harness from pontoon stuff, but I did not have enough room on my console for either of there switch panels. I ordered a panel from another source, but it does not look exactly like I expected... I figured (1) hot wire and (1) ground... This is a 5 gang switch, and there are 3 hot wire's and one ground.

Tell me if I am correct- I am thinking I connect all (3) red wires from the switch to the (1) red wire from the harness. Then the (1) black to the (1) black. From there I just run the correct "out" wires to the accessories...

Am I right, or will I burn this thing up, before I ever get to the water??? I have attached a picture for reference...

Thanks-

Jason

perhaps posting pictures of more angles will help getting answers to your questions.

I'm no electrician.... at all.

but..... maybe the 3 reds are all for 'hot' connections, and the switch panel has one common ground wire, to ground all the attached connections??

looks like the 3 reds to power and the single black to ground.
btw, they are fused so you will not burn anything. I am a 12volt tech

Add a bus bar for each pos and neg, biggest draw on the single, lights on one side and whatever else you have on the other.

Add a dedicated ground to radio increase wire size and then add each ground for a pair of switches to the bus bar.

With corrosion and wear that small ground will haunt you later.

Here are a couple more angles...

Thanks for the replies... so- just to make sure i am on same page...

I will add the bus bar in front of the panel. I will run main power and ground from harness, to it. From there I will run the three power to their own leg of the bar, along with the one ground from panel....

Question here, you mentioned extra ground for the switches... I These are not marked with +/- none of them have black wire so which leg would it typically be?? The ground wire seems to run around internally?

For the radio... I would run Ground directly to bus bar...

Thanks again!!!

Jason

The switches simply cut the +'flow, everything else is grounded by the harness.

I was speaking from experience of my own, when my radio gets turned up, it runs out of ground and cuts off. When everything is on, the limit of the ground is less (lower volume) than without. I may end up cleaning up my negative wiring to get it corrected.

There is a site to google that address wire colors and what they do.

The ground on the switch panel may not only be for the indictor lights for the switches but the power supply/cigarette lighter as well. The fused lines on the switched side (cold) of the circuit. You will need to get power up to the switches from you power supply. Use a heavy enough gauge wire to avoid overloading, like a 12 or 10, better to heavy than not heavy enough.