No power to auxillary panel on pontoon boat

[Sierra048]

OK. So I added my second battery, along with a battery switch, to my pontoon boat. Everything was pretty straight forward. Engine starts fine on either battery 1 position or battery 2 position. All gauges work fine. The only problem I have is that my auxillary panel feeding my radio, horn and nav lights is not working. I'm thinking it's a fuse somewhere along the way. There was no time where I shorted any wires or terminals. I didn't have my meter with me yesterday so I really coudn't check. They all worked fine before adding the second battery and switch. No wiring was touched except for removing battery cables to rearrange for the battery switch and adding the extra cables from the positive terminals of the batteries to the switch and the common cable I needed to connect the two negative battery terminals together. I drew up a crude before and after diagram to show what it was like before and after. Sorry the orientation might be off might. Hopefully it's clear enough and easy enough to see.

My quest when I get back to the boat is to see if there are any inline fuses not obvious without having to cut the plethora of tie-wraps to try and find one. The auxillary panel has a main 12V fuse that feeds the all the switches on the panel. As a quick test I quickly shorted across the 12V fuse terminals to see if my courtesy light would flicker. It didn't but it might not have been good enough contact across the terminals. There is an ignition protected fuse coming off the positive load side of the switch (before the switch it came straight off the original battery positive terminal) feeding two wires. One wire I'm guessing is the power to my gauges and the other to the auxillary panel. My gauges work so I'm assuming this fuse is good. Don't think it's a grounding issue since everything worked fine before and no grounding was touched, short of adding the cable to common the negative battery leads.

So does anyone have an idea where there might be an additional fuse between the batteriees and the main 12V fuse at the auxillary panel?
If not, and the two obvious fuses are good, what in the world could I have screwed up?

 

[sleddriver]

Originally Posted By: Sierra048
....I didn't have my meter with me yesterday so I really coudn't check....
Troubleshooting this over the 'net is a tall order...to say the least. If it worked before, yet doesn't now, then you missed something. My DVM is always with me when doing this type of work. However, you could also trace it with a 12V bulb and some wire.

Good Luck.

 

[bubbatime]

Did you remove a wire that goes to the 12v post, and forget to reinstall it? On my boat there are several wires that go straight to the post. If you forget to put one back on... no power for that item.

 

[Sierra048]

I found it. There were three ground wires bonded together and terminated via one ring terminal at the battery. One of the three wires was just barely making a connection under the crimp and apparantley came loose when I was moving wires around while adding the second battery and switch. Only looked for a ground problem after verifying I had 12Vs at the main auxillary fuse and all auxillary switchs. After verifying that, looking for a lack of a ground was the only thing I could think of. Just glad I found it and it's back to normal.