Trojan Boat Forum

Should I have dc lighting with the switches off?
Does not matter what position switches are in. I can turn on dc lighting?

Is there an "Off" position? We can only see batt 1, batt, 2, and both batteries in parallel. As pictured, yes you can have DC lighting because we cannot see an "off" position.

With the being said, and having no familiarity with your particular vessel, the location of this switch suggests that it is designed to connect 2 batteries to 1 motor for redundancy. I am not convinced this the main. You should have a "main panel" somewhere in the vessel that has the main switches coupled with the AC and DC fuse blocks/breakers.

bjanakos wrote:Is there an "Off" position? We can only see batt 1, batt, 2, and both batteries in parallel. As pictured, yes you can have DC lighting because we cannot see an "off" position.

With the being said, and having no familiarity with your particular vessel, the location of this switch suggests that it is designed do connect 2 batteries to 1 motor for redundancy. I am not convinced this the main. You should have a "main panel" somewhere in the vessel that has the main switches coupled with the AC and DC fuse blocks/breakers.

Yes there is an off position.
I thought the power panel was only ac power from shore or genset?
Charging from solar panels in both position.

You can't assume that previous owners didn't make wiring changes or that they wired things up properly as they added accessories, repaired faults, etc. If the switch is off and things still work, then there are circuits by-passing the main switch, getting power from somewhere that is not switched. May even be going directly to the battery or off the ignition circuit which is sometimes not controled by a main battery selector switch. A lot of people simply take the easy way out and pick up power from the ignition key switch for example.

Quite frankly - depends on how a previous owner wired / rewired things. If a PO has wired things directly to the battery terminals (or any power block that is still live even if switch is turned off, like bilge pump connections usually are), that could lead to this. No easy way around it - check and follow all connections to the battery, and look at the wiring / fuse panel for anything that does not look 'factory'. Factory would not have done this. The battery switch is after market. Gotta look at and trace what else was done after market.

OOPS - looks like Big D posted pretty much the same thing while I was typing!

captainmaniac wrote:Quite frankly - depends on how a previous owner wired / rewired things. If a PO has wired things directly to the battery terminals (or any power block that is still live even if switch is turned off, like bilge pump connections usually are), that could lead to this. No easy way around it - check and follow all connections to the battery, and look at the wiring / fuse panel for anything that does not look 'factory'. Factory would not have done this. The battery switch is after market. Gotta look at and trace what else was done after market.

Nothing wired directly to battery. Power Must be tapped in elsewhere.
I'll have to check power on starter solenoid to see if it shuts down.
The wires are cool to the touch. So no problems there. The fuse panel does not looked to be altered. Maybe in back?
What makes you think switches are aftermarket ?

You should not have lights or any power But ......... You can't be sure what some else has done like Big D said

Big D wrote:You can't assume that previous owners didn't make wiring changes or that they wired things up properly as they added accessories, repaired faults, etc. If the switch is off and things still work, then there are circuits by-passing the main switch, getting power from somewhere that is not switched. May even be going directly to the battery or off the ignition circuit which is sometimes not controled by a main battery selector switch. A lot of people simply take the easy way out and pick up power from the ignition key switch for example.

Well mystery solved. I disconnected all positive battery terminals. Reached up and hit the switch. Dc lights turned on. As a last ditch effort I turned solar panel controller off. Lights out. Power off.

It seems the the controller is tapped into the dc lighting via a terminal board in the cockpit. There are a few other things tied in too. Seem like it bypasses the switches too.

Thanks to all for your support.