Our CD 30 Ala Libre has been having some electrical problems which I believe can be traced to faulty grounding. We have been looking all over for the cable that is supossed to connect engine and/or batterry ground to the grounding plate and/or negative ground bus bar. Our objective is to verify ground connections to rule out that cause .So far, no luck. We have found neither bus bar or cable. Please, somebody enlighten us! Thank you all for your contributions to this great meeting place. Fair Winds.
melendezsal@yahoo.com
Electrical Ground bus bar
Moderator: Jim Walsh
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D. Stump, Hanalei
Re: Electrical Ground cable to engine...
On Hanalei, with a Universal 18, 14hp diesel, the ground cable attaches to the starboard lower part of the bell housing. It is a ring terminal, through bolted through the bell housing. The terminal on Hanalei was corroded/tired. Replaced it and all groundds seem good now. It is a black cable....
D. Stump, Hanalei
D. Stump, Hanalei
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Patrick Turner
Re: Electrical Ground bus bar
Start with your house bank battery. The negative side (black cable) should connect to either a negative distribution bar (6"-8" long bar with 4 3/8" studs for "distributing" ground wires) and then on to somewhere on your engine block for final ground or it will connect directly to your engine block. If your house bank consists of more then one battery, just find the last one in the daisy chain and follow it's black cable. It should go to somewhere on the block, if it doesn't you need to determine just what it is attatched to. Although the electrical systems sometimes look complicated, the basics really aren't. All the negatives need to be attatched to the ground (the engine block) via terminal strips that are themselves attatched to negative distribution bars that are in turn attatched to the engine block. All the positives are attatched to terminal strips that are themselves attatched to positive distribution bars that are attatched to the positive side of the battery system. You might not have the positive and/or negative distribution bars in your setup, so the prinicpal is just a little less cluttered, but remains the same - negatives attatch to the ground via some connections and positives attatch to the positive side of the battery via some connections. The only addition is the "switch" added in the positive "stream" for each electrical item on board that temporarily connects or disconnects that thing to the system.
Can you be more specific about your electical problem?
Pat
patrick.t@attbi.com
Can you be more specific about your electical problem?
Pat
patrick.t@attbi.com
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Ken Cave
Re: Electrical Ground bus bar
About two weeks I got a call from my diver, and told me that my prop zinc was gone (two months!) I contacted the local marine shop and they sent a electrician down to see if I have a problem. The only thing he could see was some corrosion on the terminals that were mounted on the plate in the bilge. I replaced them all, as well as installing a additional ground on the engine.
When we checked again, we did discover that someone in the marina was really "hot" and when attached to the AC on the dock, that was doing the dirty deed to the zincs. I have now a Galvanic Isolator installed to keep my boat afloat and happy.
You might hire someone to take a look at the electrical system. It was worth the $65.00 for the hour that the electrician spent in finding the problem!
Ken Cave
CD 28 #227
Anacortes, WA
bcave@whidbey.net
When we checked again, we did discover that someone in the marina was really "hot" and when attached to the AC on the dock, that was doing the dirty deed to the zincs. I have now a Galvanic Isolator installed to keep my boat afloat and happy.
You might hire someone to take a look at the electrical system. It was worth the $65.00 for the hour that the electrician spent in finding the problem!
Ken Cave
CD 28 #227
Anacortes, WA
bcave@whidbey.net
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Scott Ritchey
Re: Electrical Ground bus bar
On my 1980 CD27, the 12vDC "bus bar" turned out to just be a place behind the electrical plane where all the ground wires were twisted together and soldered. This made the added circuits kind of messy. So I installed a real bus bar behind the electric panel.
Ritcheyvs@aol.com
V Melendez s/v Ala Libre wrote: Our CD 30 Ala Libre has been having some electrical problems which I believe can be traced to faulty grounding. We have been looking all over for the cable that is supossed to connect engine and/or batterry ground to the grounding plate and/or negative ground bus bar. Our objective is to verify ground connections to rule out that cause .So far, no luck. We have found neither bus bar or cable. Please, somebody enlighten us! Thank you all for your contributions to this great meeting place. Fair Winds.
Ritcheyvs@aol.com
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Randy Bates
Re: Electrical Ground bus bar
On Seraph, our CD25D the engine ground cable is a coiled wired coming from the port front motor mount area. It's rather large diameter wire that is coiled like a phone cord. The coils prevent flexing at the fittings as the motor vibrates.V Melendez s/v Ala Libre wrote: Our CD 30 Ala Libre has been having some electrical problems which I believe can be traced to faulty grounding. We have been looking all over for the cable that is supossed to connect engine and/or batterry ground to the grounding plate and/or negative ground bus bar. Our objective is to verify ground connections to rule out that cause .So far, no luck. We have found neither bus bar or cable. Please, somebody enlighten us! Thank you all for your contributions to this great meeting place. Fair Winds.
randy.bates@baesystems.com
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Ken Coit
Re: Electrical Ground bus bar
Could it be that there is no cable? Is there a negative bus bar? Is it connected to the batteries? Are all the batteries' negative terminals (assuming they are all 12 volts) connected together? There must be some path from the negative terminals of the batteries to the various devices either directly or indirectly or nothing using 12 VDC would work at all and the batteries could not be charged.
Try checking the resistance between your engine block and the negative terminals of your batteries. The resistance should be a small fraction of 1 ohm.
Keep on sailing,
Ken Coit
CD/14 #538
CD/36 #84 Parfait
Hailing Port: Raleigh, NC
Sailing from: Beaufort, NC
parfaitNOSPAM@nc.rr.com
Try checking the resistance between your engine block and the negative terminals of your batteries. The resistance should be a small fraction of 1 ohm.
Keep on sailing,
Ken Coit
CD/14 #538
CD/36 #84 Parfait
Hailing Port: Raleigh, NC
Sailing from: Beaufort, NC
Randy Bates wrote:On Seraph, our CD25D the engine ground cable is a coiled wired coming from the port front motor mount area. It's rather large diameter wire that is coiled like a phone cord. The coils prevent flexing at the fittings as the motor vibrates.V Melendez s/v Ala Libre wrote: Our CD 30 Ala Libre has been having some electrical problems which I believe can be traced to faulty grounding. We have been looking all over for the cable that is supossed to connect engine and/or batterry ground to the grounding plate and/or negative ground bus bar. Our objective is to verify ground connections to rule out that cause .So far, no luck. We have found neither bus bar or cable. Please, somebody enlighten us! Thank you all for your contributions to this great meeting place. Fair Winds.
parfaitNOSPAM@nc.rr.com