Category Archives: Bus Bars

Three questions. Three answers.

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Hi Kevin,

Two questions…

  1. Solder or crimp terminals?
  2. How do I select proper wire sizes?

Oh wait, make that three. Fuses or circuit breakers?

I have a Hurricane pontoon boat that’s starting to cause me some problems and I’m going to redo all of the boat wiring.

Thanks,Godfrey dash

Barry

Hi Bill,

  1. If you are going to solder terminals, they really need to have a strain relief on the wire near the connection because the wire gets brittle.
  2. Use my wire size calculator to help decide your wire size.
  3. Circuit breakers are simple to reset and you never need to worry about the being replaced with an incorrect size. If you decide to buy breakers, make sure they are ignition protected if you are using them in your engine room or near stored fuel. ATC (closed) fuses are ignition protected, ATO (open) fuses are not.

Hope this helps,

Kevin

Gauge Power

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Kevin

I am going to overhaul the boat wiring on an old Sun Cruiser pontoon.

It will have the following accesories:

Here’s me question:

The power for the gauges…I have no purple wire or pigtail to go to the positive boat bus bar to power the gauges. Would I have to tap into the tach from the three pin connection from the controls to make this happen? Maybe the three female pins below keyswitch on the control? Is this okay?Speedometer

I have a cable that goes it to it with black, grey and purple boat wiring. Or can I just use go from the three pin connection from the controls the purple wire to the positve bus bar to tach, volt, and fuel gauge

My setup is as follows:

  • 1989 Evinrude 110 hp with power/tilt trim
  • OMC side mount controls with tach plug below key switch
  • Tach gauge
  • Volt gauge
  • Fuel gauge
  • Five Switch Marine Electrical Panel
  • Fuse panel
  • Ground bus bar
  • Positive bus bar
  • Battery switch
  • Two batteries starting/deep cycle for accessories

Thanks,

Eddie

Hi Eddie,

You can certainly connect to any purple at or near the ignition switch/control to power up your gauges. In that era, OMC only used purple for switched ignition power. Purple/White was for the choke.

Hope this helps,

Kevin

Kevin,

Can I also use the black ground wire from the tach harness to ground all of my gauges?Fuel,Tach,Volt or should these be grounded somewhere else.

Eddie

Yes you can.

Kevin

Inline Breakers?

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Hi Kevin,

I have a small pontoon on which I’m changing some of the boat wiring.

I’m running a few accessories that I want to run off switches, so I bought terminal blocks, one for the power and one for the grounds.

My question is:EzAcDc has bus bars for your boat wiring project

I don’t have fuses but am using 2 pole push button circuit breakers. And I’m wondering if the breakers would be inline before the switches? Basically how do I incorporate the breakers?

Here is a boat wiring diagram to show what I’m thinking.

Any info would help!

Thank you.

Allen

Hi Alex,

You will want to follow the basic format: source of power (terminal block), breaker (within 7″ of terminal block), switch, component, and then ground terminal block.

Hope this helps,

Kevin