22 Bluewater Offshore 1990

[Owen H]

Hey guys, just joined this forum because a good buddy of mine sold me his 22 Bluewater Offshore 1990. I tried installing led rope lights to run down the tunnel walls and to a new switch panel. This may have been very stupid. But I connected the rocker switch panel to the positive and negative running off the cigarette lighter. Immediately, the positive wire melted and I tore that wiring apart. Nothing was affected at first.

The next day the boat was having trouble starting and I had to use another battery connected to mine to get the 5.0 to turn over. Once underway, the bilge, aerator, and blower switches lit up while in the OFF position. The guages spiked and have been like that since. When I turn the ignition key to position 1, the guages have a lot of current running to them meaning a short. I don't even know where to start as this boat has no fuse panel. I checked the inline fuses I could find, but do not know where to inspect.

Could the relays be suspect, or bad switches? I'm a total newbie with wiring. I hope someone can lead me in the right direction.

 

[kcassells]

Hi Owen,
Their are just too many variables to answer your electrical problems.Pics may have a helping hand in the matter.
Boat wiring is not very complicated but what is complicated are all the ways owners modify their systems.
Most times its a back to basics issues to clarify all the scenariois that were improperly installed, remove and do it right.

 

[emoney]

Start at the battery and as silly as it seems, make sure the negative wires are on the negative post and the same for the positive. The way you described the attempt at wiring the lights sounds like something my be backwards. From there, all DC wiring is basically the same; you need a + and a - in each circuit. Don’t assume wire color either because who knows what a PO had on hand when they wired something before.