wiring in a circuit breaker

[ROAM1962]

I am currently wiring my small sloop. She has very few electrics; An interior light, Nav lights, bilge pump and depth sounder/Log. The surveyor said that I would need a fused switch panel. I got a basic 6 switch ciruit breaker type.

Wiring the electronics to this confused me. I noticed that there is only one positive in and one negative out of the whole unit. Each of the individual circuit breaker switches only have one negative (black) wire to connect to. Would anybody have any idea of how this could be wired- up? Do I need a ring main? I looked at Nigel Calders Boatowners Electrical Manual and there is no wiring example for such a set-up.

I have a lovely picture of the thing, but my mac does not let me paste it in here!

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[halcyon]

The red( pos ) wire in should go to a busbar joining all the circuit breakers together, the output then goes to a switch by the sound of it. The switch should then feed a pos to your equipment, you then take a neg back to a common point were all the negs meet, then go to the battery neg. The black wire to each switch could be the neg for a warning light.
To be more accurate we need to see a pic.

Brian

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[howardclark]

from memory of my wiring, positive is the positive feed for all the circuits - you feed each device with the positive from the spare blade on the breaker, negative is for the panel lights, each device is run separately to a common earth

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[paulrossall]

It is a bit difficult to give advice when you cannot see the pannel but the easiest way to progress is to test the circuits so that you understand what is happening. I would use as small torch battery and bulb if necessary to see what happens when you switch the switches.

I would guess NOTE GUESS that the red feeds power to all the circuit breakers.

I would guess the black lead from each circuit breaker/switch is in fact the wire carrying the positive current away from the cb/switch. You can check this out by using the battery/bulb, or by a mega-meter, if you have one. You would have to connect each of these wires with individual connectors to the light, bilge pump or depth sounder, as applicable.

I do not know what the one "negative out" does do but would guess it should go to a negative feed from the battery.

The negatives from each of the lights, bilge pumps etc sould all be connected to a "buss bar", a brass (or similar) bar with holes and screws so that all the negatives can be attatched (maybe even the one from the pannel) and a negative feed from the battery should also go there.

Hope this helps. You do need to make sure you understand the connections you are making before you connect 12 volts on the boat as if you get it wrong you could get some "bangs and flashes", and worst case start a fire. Good luck. Paul

<hr width=100% size=1>" there is nothing-absolutely nothing-half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats".