battery....smokin!!!

[godspede619]

Need a little advice with my battery wiring. Ran them how I thought was correct and well.....wasnt so. wires heating up, ground a smokin. yeah....not a fun way to spend your sunday afternoon. maybe someone can help me straighten out this mess.

I have two batteries im trying to run to a 20foot bayliner trophy. I am going to use a quick disconnect that has a switch for #1 batt, #2batt, or all Batt. Im not sure if i wired it incorrect or it is very possible the switch is faulty.

On the two batteries i connected the negatives together with a single wire and then one wire off of those to a single ground post located on the center console. on the back of the quick dissconect there is a post for #1 , for #2 , and a post for "COMMON". So I wired Battery #1 positive to the #1 post on QD, wired #2 battery positive to the #2 post on QD. Then for "common"...whick I thought was ground, I ran a wire from "common"post back to my ground post from which both my negative cable were attached.

Now...heres the fun part. when i switched the power on from the quick dissconnect switch....I got smoke and hot wires. I guess somethings wrong huh. I guess my question is were did i mess up...Is the switch faulty???(which is old) Or is the "common" on the quick dissconnnect not ground.is the "common" post for my aux power to my fuses? you know the one to my my fuse board which runs all my electronics.Is there ususally a ground post on that quick dissconnect?

Please help....if you got some questons about whats going on let me know....need all the help i can get.thanks.

 

[drewpster]

Re: battery....smokin!!!

Your QD is a switch. A switch is like a valve. The valve is meant to only turn on and off the hot wires of your batteries. Picture your QD valve having two pipes going in and one pipe coming out. The switch selects number 1 pipe or number 2 pipe or BOTH pipes to feed the pipe coming out. Com- is the pipe coming out. NO grounds connect to the switch.

#1- Positive cable FROM battery 1
#2- Positive cable FROM battery 2
COM- power TO all your boats electrics.

The grounds of the batteries should connect either at the engine ground bolt or at a common ground where all your other grounds connect.

 

[Silvertip]

Re: battery....smokin!!!

Here ya go!! All of the accessories (except for an automatic bilge pump) and the engine POS battery cable connect to the COM terminal. You do realize that all that wiring must be the same size or larger cable than the engine battery cables.

 

[godspede619]

Re: battery....smokin!!!

Thanks for that quick fix....... When I originally wired the Quick disconnet I had it right. I thought there was no ground on that switch...a buddy convinced me that "common" was ground and i was alll messed up. thanks friend, hope I didnt fry my batteries. Again, thanks guy.

 

[littlebookworm]

Re: battery....smokin!!!

Sorry to hear about your mis-wiring of the switch. I suggest that, in addition to checking your batteries, you check the three way switch itself. You may have fried the contacts inside. If so, the resistance of the fried iinnards will screw up your electrical flow. If it were my boat, I'd replace the switch, double check all the wires leading to and from it, and have the batteries tested at a battery center. Good luck. Hy

 

[wajajaja02]

Re: battery....smokin!!!

Thank goodness you didn't get hurt, seriously, about 1200 amps DC dead short, might have arced, burst into flames, exploded fragments and exploded battery acid all over,(hydrochloric). responded on a first aid call once for that ugly.