Negative bus bar and shunt?

[ShaneO]

I’m pottering about with the electrics, mostly starting at the batteries and working distally, trying to do some simplification and rationalisation of generations of vestigial wiring for equipment long since obsolete or entirely gone. Uncomfortably close to a lot of big positive cables is this negative assembly, which I suspect to be some sort of combination bus bar and monitor shunt, but would appreciate if it looks familiar to anyone else before I start ripping it out! (nice new Victron monitor is in place with its shunt closer to the battery negatives)

 

[Alex_Blackwood]

I’m pottering about with the electrics, mostly starting at the batteries and working distally, trying to do some simplification and rationalisation of generations of vestigial wiring for equipment long since obsolete or entirely gone. Uncomfortably close to a lot of big positive cables is this negative assembly, which I suspect to be some sort of combination bus bar and monitor shunt, but would appreciate if it looks familiar to anyone else before I start ripping it out! (nice new Victron monitor is in place with its shunt closer to the battery negatives)

From these pictures I would not give a definitive answer. The uncertainty of the thin (3 core cable??) connections makes ID pure guess work from here.
Sorry

 

[PaulRainbow]

I’m pottering about with the electrics, mostly starting at the batteries and working distally, trying to do some simplification and rationalisation of generations of vestigial wiring for equipment long since obsolete or entirely gone. Uncomfortably close to a lot of big positive cables is this negative assembly, which I suspect to be some sort of combination bus bar and monitor shunt, but would appreciate if it looks familiar to anyone else before I start ripping it out! (nice new Victron monitor is in place with its shunt closer to the battery negatives)

Looks like a very old battery monitor shunt. Trace the thin wires, if they go nowhere it's likely redundant.

 

[ShaneO]

Thanks folks! Due to the way cables are routed, tracing the thin ones via the multi-core cable they quickly become would have been nightmarish, but while doing something unrelated behind the chart table electrics panel I noticed an identical-looking cable I’d chopped previously during another bout of clearing-out. I managed to feed it back and yes indeed, it’s the same one, so I’ll get rid of that shunt and replace with a dedicated protected bus bar somewhere a little less hair-raising.

I haven’t been keeping a formal count, but between what I’ve pulled out from between the batteries and electrics panel and back to the stern arch this time, plus what came out of ceilings previously, I’d roughly estimate I’ve shed about eleventy bajillion kilometres of cable. The complexity is coming down and my understanding is going up and I expect eventually they’ll meet in the middle. I wonder what I’ll find inside the mast.