Basic question on grounding....

[dkuster]

Hi Everyone,

I was stripping down the 14' deep-V I recently bought and I noticed that the previous owner had wired the negative (-) terminal of the battery to the aluminum hull. This allowed him to then run only a single positve (+) wire to the bow for the bow light. The ground connection for the bow light was just a 2" jumper wire to a through-hull bolt.

This is similar to how a car is wired.

My original plan was to run both + and - leads to whatever needs power, but is grounding to the hull the correct way? Are there any pluses or minuses to doing this?

Also, if you have two separate batteries in the boat (one for TM and one for everything else) can you connect both grounds to the hull?

Thanks!

 

[linehand]

Using the hull for the primary grounding will probably cause headaches down the road. I wouldn't even bond to the hull. I would run a suitable ground wire from batteries to grounding terminal blocks in a spot or two on the boat where you are going to have a few connections.
My opinion.

 

[dkuster]

Using the hull for the primary grounding will probably cause headaches down the road. I wouldn't even bond to the hull. I would run a suitable ground wire from batteries to grounding terminal blocks in a spot or two on the boat where you are going to have a few connections.
My opinion.

Thanks for the reply! I will leave the hull ungrounded...

 

[Zum]

Good call.
You should never use the hull as a ground.
Electrolysis...

 

[johnboat_red]

ya electrolysis and you have not made the entire boat a ground plane so any wires that rub through or if you drop a batt cable. etc

...ZAP dead short to ground say goodby to anything electronic without a fuse.

 

[fastcajun]

better check for pin holes if it has been grounded that way for long.

 

[Bob Landry]

Connect all of the negative terminals on your batteries using #4 cable. That insures that ground is at the same potential all over the boat.

 

[shawnfish]

Good call.
You should never use the hull as a ground.
Electrolysis...

=D>