CHB electical

Help!(please). I have a 1978 CHB and want to install a radio and a new chart plotter on the flybridge. When I crawled in under the dashboard I saw what appeared to be quite a few electrical junctions on a bar. There is a second bar that has several ground wires but not hot wires. I want to install a new buss bar for the new electronics but have been unable to locate any power on the junctions. All 12v systems are on but no readings on the multimeter. It looks like all these circuits are dead. Everything works though. I am going to run a whole new circuit from the breakers in the cabin up to the bridge but I’m wondering what I’m looking at on the flybridge. Thanks everyone.

Any chance you can post some pictures? It is hard to debug without any reference and many of these boats are far from factory w.r.t. wiring. Thanks!

I added a dedicated power panel for the electronics on our bridge. I ran an oversized positive and negative cable from the house bank, with a proper size fuse, to the panel. That way I know that I have good voltage and adequate current capacity to power the new electronics. A lot of the original boat wiring is not adequate to power all the new electronics. With undersize wiring you don’t get good voltage and then the electronics don’t work well and things get suspect.

Is your meter set to Volts DC?

When you use the probes on the busses do you scratch the needle on the busses?

If you don't there may be enough oxidation to interfere with a reading. It would take only one probe to not make good contact.

Or use a small file or sandpaper and clean a spot on the busses. One done and you have voltage or
not then smear a wee bit of dielectric grease on the bared spots for future use.

And yes to a photo or two.

Comodave said:

I added a dedicated power panel for the electronics on our bridge. I ran an oversized positive and negative cable from the house bank, with a proper size fuse, to the panel. That way I know that I have good voltage and adequate current capacity to power the new electronics. A lot of the original boat wiring is not adequate to power all the new electronics. With undersize wiring you don’t get good voltage and then the electronics don’t work well and things get suspect.

Click to expand...

I did the same thing. I ran #6 wire to a dedicated fuse panel just for electronics.

Thanks for the good advice. I’ll try to take some pics this weekend. Meanwhile I’ve just realized that there is a whole section about electrical systems/electronics.