telephone and wiring guy that can't figure out his own boat lights and problem

Thanks for the suggestion BOUTTIME007. I'm new. I've posted my reply as a new thread.

Re: Anchor light - what/where is it?
Great info and forum from what appears to be a Navy crew! Sorry but I'm a 'flyguy' but I still need help on the same topic.
My problem is this; I have a 3 pin nav base and a 2 pin stern base. The switch is a NAV/ANCH rocker. The stern all around light works properly. The bow light is lit as soon as it's plugged into the base, meaning it's hot no matter how the switch is set. When I look at the bow wiring I see the common (ground) is tied to the ground of the bow rocker switch for the bow live well. That switch is a rocker that activates the fill (up) and the recirc (down) and has little indictator lights on it showing when it's running. That same ground is also tied to a little coutesy light on that panel. The courtesy light has a hot wire and the ground. The light is also set up as a rocker, up/on, middle/off, down/on. Now that part is clear. When I turn on the Nav/Anch switch, the live well both indictator lights half shine. When I turn on the coutesy light the livewell both indictators fully shine. Carefull steps have been taken to place wires back in their original position as I've moved them around troubleshooting. Does anyone care to take a stab at what I've got going on? I bought the boat new back in 98 but as a telephone guy in Mn, I never get to fish at night. I didn't realize a problem until I had the boat for a while. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Re: telephone and wiring guy that can't figure out his own boat lights and problem

It sounds like you may have a bad NAV/ANCH switch, in nav the bow light only should light, in anch the white stern light only should light. Follow the wires from your bow light, it appears they bypass the switch to the 12v side of you system. It's not uncommon ( although not correct) to daisy chain the ground side. With a multimeter set to ohms, check all of your switches (with wires off ) to make sure in the off positions you don't have a high resistance path anywhere.

Re: telephone and wiring guy that can't figure out his own boat lights and problem

that's kinda confusing.

imho. ground is ground, as long as ground ends up back at the neg. post of the batt.

have ya seen this..

i think i'd get the bait wells lights off the nav. light circuit. or at least eliminate them for diagnosis till ya get the nav. lights to operate proper.

best i can do for ya.. hope ya get her figured out..

Re: telephone and wiring guy that can't figure out his own boat lights and problem

The anchor base has 2 pins as it is a single light with a 12v+ and ground. The bow light has 3 pins as there are 2 lights in there, so it has two 12v+ feeds and share a common ground.

Your bow and stern lights should be on when in NAV mode and just the stern light in ANCH setting. I recommend removing any wiring from the switch that isn't supposed to be there. Each switch should have a dedicated power/ground feed from a buss bar. The only daisy chain should be for the ground terminal for lighted switches.

Here is how it should be wired:

Re: telephone and wiring guy that can't figure out his own boat lights and problem

You are missing a ground/common/negative connection somewhere (or it is corroded), and the circuits are finding ground/common/negative through the lights in the switches.

I agree with Fireman: keep the circuits separate.

Re: telephone and wiring guy that can't figure out his own boat lights and problem

In a pinch, you can disconnect one switch at a time to see if either 1) the lights turn off, or 2) the switch lamps brighten up. Either way, that will identify the culprit. Then...fix it properly.

Re: telephone and wiring guy that can't figure out his own boat lights and problem

All great info and I thank you! With the aide of a 12 pack and multimeter I've discovered that I have 3 separate problems going on. The 12 should have been a 24 because I've not fully figured out the what's and why's yet. It appears that I either had an error during assembly or later during dealer prep. I'm fairly good at following schematics but what I have does not seem to follow what you and others have provided here and on many other posts. I'm sure that each of the posts are correct, it's just not what I have. My course correction plan is this; 24 instead of 12, then 1 wire at a time.
I am many times dense and when you add always stubborn it becomes even more difficult to grasp the obvious. I understand the concept of the bow base with 3 wires and 2 lamps. Here comes the dense part_ I only have 1 bulb inside the post? What's the second hot for? Is it a double filament bulb?

Re: telephone and wiring guy that can't figure out his own boat lights and problem

Shouldn't be a double filament bulb, Those are reserved for auto brake/turn signal/running lamps. The bow light is on/off. Have you verified that both wires are hot and the other is a good ground? Do you have a test light? Could simply be that the factory runs 2 hot wires for the bow lamps and someone installed a single lamp fixture. Flip the NAV lights on and see if both wires are hot. If so, use one or both.

Re: telephone and wiring guy that can't figure out his own boat lights and problem

jss335 said:

I understand the concept of the bow base with 3 wires and 2 lamps. Here comes the dense part_ I only have 1 bulb inside the post? What's the second hot for? Is it a double filament bulb?

Click to expand...

Three prongs, assuming they aren't evenly spaced, index the pole so your lights are oriented properly.