Category Archives: Navigation Lights

Cable Crimp Complicit?

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Kevin,

The main DC voltage of my pontoon boat’s marine electrical drops when my running lights, electronics, and radio are on.

  • The drop is around 6 to 10 volts.
  • The main DC power on my boat wiring is 4 gauge and the run is about 12 ft.
  • I’ve got two 8d batteries on a duel switch. I only use these batteries for accessories only, not for starting that boat engine.

    • Multimeter

Do you have any suggestions? The batteries are fairly new this past season. Before any draw the battry voltage is 12.6 volts

Thank you!

Barry

Hi Barry,

Check all of your connections – especially where the boat battery cables connect to the terminals.

A bad crimp will cause a high resistance point that will give a higher voltage reading with low draw, but a low voltage reading with a high draw.

Let me know what you find,

Kevin

Three questions. Three answers.

Posted on by

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

Relay Race

Posted on by

Kevin,

I need your boat wiring advice for a problem that I am having with my 2008 Sanpan pontoon boat.

I am getting power to my breaker panel when I turn on the toggle switch, but no power to the control panel for the lights, radio, depth finder and etc.

Can anyone help me?

Thanks,

Ron

Hi Rob,

A main power relay was traditionally used on the Sanpan. Your master power switch on the dash energizes that relay.

When you turn on the master switch, there should be 12 volt on the terminal marked 87 (there are only 5 terminals) on the back of the relay.

  • Main power in – terminal 30
  • Ground – terminal 86
  • Master power switch connection – terminal 85
  • No connection – terminal 87A

Hope this helps,

Kevin

Diode Does It

Posted on by

Hi Kevin,

Thank you for all of the great boat wiring info.

Here’s my question:Attwood is the world's top manufacturer of navigation lighting for recreational boats.

I am trying to wire my Attwood bow lights and an Attwood white all-round navigation light using a Marpac 7-0493 Off/On/On push pull switch.

Switch Operation is:

  • First position- Bow and running lights are on, anchor off
  • Second Position- Bow and anchor lights on, running lights off

I want to end up with bow and anchor on – or anchor only on.

I would really appreciate it if you could show a diagram or sketch on how to achieve the above.

Thanks and be well

Ronnie

Hi Rob,

Connect a diode like this one between the bow light terminal and the anchor light terminal on your switch. The white line on the diode goes towards the bow light terminal of the switch.

I would cover the diode with shrink tube or tape.

Happy wiring,

Kevin

Crazy!

Posted on by

Hello Kevin,

I have a 2000 Bennington 2050 LX with a Mercury 50hp 4-stroke Bigfoot engine.

Yesterday the marine electrical system went kind of crazy. The motor kept running but the gauges all started to bouncing the indicator needles around then the control panel went dead.

The battery is fine (tested) and there is power to all the accessories but the ignition switch seems dead….the motor will not turn over and the tilt will not work either. I checked the two main fuses at the battery and they seemed fine.Bennington Pontoon Boats

What would make those gauges go crazy then everything goes dead? Luckily I did not turn the engine off and we made it back to shore.

Thank you,

Rob

Hi Rob,

You have a blown fuse on the engine. It will be near the starter solenoid. Remove the engine hood and follow your positive battery cable to the connection point. The in-line fuse will be within 6″ of this connection point.

Something non-repeatable such as a voltage spike may have caused the fuse to blow. Make sure your battery connections are good and that you do not rotate a battery switch to off while the engine is running. If the fuse blows again, trace the power lead from the fuse up to the helm and out to components.

You should be able to find the problem in your boat wiring by the process of elimination.

Hope this helps,

Kevin

Kevin,

I just wanted to let you know you were correct. It was the fuse after all.

When I first looked it seemed good, but I finally replaced it just on a chance and it worked just fine. The bad fuse had a hairline fracture in it and when I held it up to the sun – sure enough I could see it.

Thank you very much for your good boat wiring advice!!!

Rob

Sanity Clause

Posted on by

Kevin,

I’ve recently placed an order on your partner boat wiring site, but I have the butterfly’s about my marine electrical design.

Can you please give me your opinion (and a sanity check) on this boat wiring diagram?

Thank you very much!

Steve

Hi Steve,

Nice schematic!

The only change that I would make would be to run the top battery charger output to battery #2 either at the battery switch or directly to the battery. This will allow the house battery to charge in any battery switch position. If you want to also charge your engine start battery, simply switch the battery switch into either the ON position or the combine.

If your pontoon boat has a bimini top and you are planning on attaching your all-round white light to the top of the frame, you many want to consider switching to this navigation light kit, which has a light base that easily mounts to the frame.

Thank you for your order,

Kevin

Navigation Light Wiring

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Hi Kevin,

I have a old pontoon with no navigation lights.

I put a red and green light up the front and a white light up on the pontoon bimini top frame.Attwood is the world leader in navigation lights

When I hook them up directly to a 12 volt battery they work great. I have an on/off switch, so I put the positive on one side and the negative on the other side of the switch it sparks and carries on, can you tell me what I need to do?

Thank you,

John

Hi John,

Here is the proper way to wire your simple navigation light circuit.

  • Within 7″ of your battery, install an in-line fuse holder with a 5 amp fuse.
  • From fuse, run a wire to one post on the switch.
  • From second post on switch, connect 2 wire leads. One will connect to one of of the wires on your red/green light and one will connect to one of the wires on your white light.
  • From second wire on red/green light and white light, connect wires to negative terminal on the battery.

Hope this helps,

Kevin

Dim Bulb

Posted on by

Kevin,

If I have a 12 volt, 3 watt bulb in my boat wiring, does it matter if I use a different volt and watt as long as the connectors still match up?

Marvin

Hi Marvin,

In boat wiring (or any electrical) if you put a bulb in the a socket and the voltage rating in lower than your system rating, it will light up bright and burn out quick. If you use a bulb with a higher voltage rating, it will just light up dimmer.

The higher the wattage, the brighter the bulb will light regardless of the voltage rating.

Hopefully this sheds some light on this subject,

Kevin

Light Switch Wiring

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Kevin,

I am attempting to replace the switch for the navigation lights on my pontoon boat wiring.

The lighted switch has six posts on the back, but I have no idea as to which wires go where, and the wires are hidden in the captain’s stand so I cannot see where they go.Attwood 14386-3 switch

Can you send any boat wiring diagrams that will help me with this?

Thank you,

Chuck

Hi Chuck,

The typical boat wiring for your navigation light switch is:

  • Power is supplied to the switch at both middle terminals
  • Bottom left, forward navigation light
  • Bottom right, stern light
  • Jumper wire from bottom right to top right.

Hope this helps,

Kevin

Color Bind

Posted on by

Kevin,

I have a 2002 Manitou pontoon boat.

Recently, I had my instrument gauges and stereo stolen. To grab my stuff, the crook just cut all of the boat wiring.

I’m trying to put everything back together, and I need to know what colors are what to rewire.The best boat builder use standardized boat wiring colors

Thanks,

Daniel

Hi Daniel,

Luckily all of the better boat builders – and Manitou is definitely one of them – use a standardized set of colors for their boat wiring. You can find it here on our sister site, Fishing Boat Wiring.

Hope this helps,

Kevin

Dead Battery Cause?

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Hello Kevin

I spoke with y’all several times last spring and bought a bunch of stuff from your partners at EzAcDc for my 28′ double decker party barge restoration project.

I got their boat wiring harness, marine electrical switch panel, battery cables, and smart battery switch system. I installed all new LED navigation lighting on the boat with new wiring for everything, and I have a 4-speaker stereo system.28 Double Decker

The only thing that really draws any power is the stereo….well, that and the tiny water pump that we turn on for a few minutes every now and then to pump water up to the swimming pool slide. The pump uses 7.5 amps at startup and 5 amps continuously, but like I said, we don’t use it but a few minutes at a time. I installed all of this and put in two brand new “dual purpose” batteries that I purchased at Academy Sports. My thought was that the dual purpose batteries would give me more power for running accessories and still be more than enough to start the 1996 120hp Johnson 2-stroke outboard.

However, things didn’t work out quite like I expected. Before the summer was over, I was already having trouble keeping the batteries charged. I guess the Johnson motor’s alternator isn’t strong enough, or the motor being slow to crank and warm up takes too much out of the batteries. Anyway, I’ve gotten myself stranded with a dead battery twice already.

Question #1:

Given this setup, do you think that I would have better luck using two “starting” batteries rather than the “dual purpose” batteries?

Question #2:

Is it a bad idea to have different types of batteries running together on that smart switch system, i.e. one starting battery and one dual-purpose or deep cycle?

Thanks for your help. I’m sending a picture of the boat so you’ll know better what we’re talking about.

Paul

Hi Paul,

If everything is working correctly, the water pump, stereo, and DC accessories should not be able to draw your engine battery down below 12.7 volts and cause you to not start.

A have a few questions:

  • When you run your boat, what position do you put the battery switch in? It should be in the ON. If you run in the COMBINE position, your house systems will be able to draw down you engine battery.
  • Are any components connected to the engine battery? Either on the battery itself or on the back of the battery switch?

If you run the switch in the ON position and no components are connected to the engine battery besides your engine, it is possible that even though the engine is charging while running, it may be discharging when the engine is turned off and causing your engine battery to become flat.

The one battery should have plenty of reserve capacity to start your engine. To a certain extent, the engine alternator doesn’t really care what type of battery (starting / deep cycle) it is connected to. Problems arise when you mix and match battery types like AGM and lead acid. They both have unique charging characteristics are really don’t like to be forced to charge together.

Kevin

One switch to light them all

Posted on by

Hi KevinAttwood is the marine industry's top manufacturer of navigation lights

I am redoing my pontoon boat wiring and would like to have one toggle switch turn on only the bow lights or turn on the bow and all-round bimini lights.

How do I wire this? I’ve seen it done on other boat, but am not sure how.

Thanks.

Mel

Hi Mel,

This is fairly simple to connect. It all depends on what type of toggle switch you have.

Check out these instructions for the panel rewire kit offered by our partners at EzAcDc. The section on Navigation/Anchor light switch wiring on the second page will explain it all.

Hope this helps,

Kevin

Boat Wiring Resources

Posted on by

Hello,

I have a 1987 Sanpan and am refurbishing it this winter.

I want to replace the gauges on the dash. However when I looked at the panel from behind I saw a nightmare of boat wiring dynamically connected all over the place and could make no sense of it at all. Godfrey Sanpan

Now I’m thinking that it may be easier to start from scratch, rather than try to get on the same page as the original designer, however, I’d need a solid understanding of DC circuitry with respect to gauges, as well as their attachment points on the engine.

Is there a resource for novices on this subject?

Thanks for any help you could provide.

Yours truly,

Neil

Hi Neil,

Several great boat wiring books have been written by Don Casey, Ed Sherman, and John Payne on the subject.

Some of these are even available for download on your Kindle.

Good luck,

Kevin

Switch Should Help

Posted on by

Kevin,

I have pontoon boat wiring that runs the battery down when the boat isn’t running.

I put an amp probe on it and it is drawing 1 amp, but I am not sure what to do next.A simple on/off switch can disconnect the battery when not in use.

Frank

Hi Frank,

With you amp probe installed, remove fuses or disconnect circuit breakers one at a time to determine which circuit is creating the draw. I would put my money on your stereo being the problem.

A simple solution to your issue would be to add a classic ON/OFF battery switch. You could use it to completely disconnect the battery from the rest of the boat wiring when you aren’t using it.

Happy boat wiring,

Kevin