3 toggle gang switch wiring

[steveinct]

I hope this is a simple one for the pros who know wiring. I had to buy a new three toggle switchplate for my boat. The switches will run the bilge pump, the live well aerator and the front and rear running lights.<br /><br />The switch is pretty basic. Three switches and three fuses, side by side. On the back of the switchplate there is a red wire that had a little plastic cover on it. That would seem to me to be the main hot wire. There are three more wires, each one comes from a switch. But--they're all red too!<br /><br />The wires I have to connect from my boat are: 1 red wire, one black, one brown, one brown with wite stripe, one grey and one grey with white stripe. OK, where do they go?

 

[Silvertip]

Re: 3 toggle gang switch wiring

Follow them! Using a voltmeter, test the red wire to ground. If you have 12V on that wire with the key off its hot all the time and could be used to power the panel. If its hot only with the key on it can also be used to power the panel but that wouldn't be the best setup since at night (fishing for example) you would have no lights with the key off. The Black wire is very likely ground and finds its way back to the battery via the engine/control harness. The other wires are anyones guess since we have no idea what boat you have, what year, etc.

 

[steveinct]

Re: 3 toggle gang switch wiring

Thanks. It's actually a very simple set up. There's no wiring to the engine, it's a pull start. There's only a simple 500gpm bilge pump, an aerator pump and the front and back lights.

 

[jtexas]

Re: 3 toggle gang switch wiring

The red wires from the switches go to the (+) side of your devices, and the (-) side of the devices should be wired to ground, probably your boat's black wire. Do either of the pumps have wires leading out of them that match any of your boat wires? Or got a voltmeter? A doityourselfer with a boat needs a digital multimeter anyway - about $30 at Radio Shack should do it. Otherwise, trial & error... <br /><br />And, let us know how you fixed it - somebody else might need to know later on!<br /><br />welcome to iboats!<br /><br />p.s. - technically your lights should be on a 2-pos switch...so you can turn off the nav lights & leave the anchor light on while anchored.