hot bus bar

[special k]

while checking electronics for operation today i discovered that much of my helm is without power.
poking around with a test light showed me that the upper bar of the hot bus bar is dead while the lower bar is hot. first question i have is does this power bar have two feeds, one for each bar? seems odd to me for half to be powered and half dead. are there large fuses involved for the feeds to this power bar? i also tested the largest wire to the upper bar assuming it may be the feed line but no juice.
so far i have electronics and bilge pumps out so i am happy to find this issue while on shore.

2002 28te

[mhanna]

Behind my dash I have 2 bus bars, one is hot all the time (for pumps and radio memory wire) the other is switched (at the A-B battery switch) and most everything else is plugged in there. The way you described yours you may have one "block" with the top bar being hot all the time and the other may be switched ?
I do not believe there are any fuses between the heavy wire feeding the bar and the switch area.

Matt

[special k]

i have one bus bar hot and one bus for ground with two "strips" each. seems to me both strips should be hot, so half of one bar is out. never had to switch the power bar before, ironically i was trouble shooting my windlass switch and did initially have power prior to this outage, i first thought my test light was failing, then wondering if i tripped a breaker somewhere......

like you matt i cannot imagine a breaker in the heavy feed wire...perplexing

p.s. it also appears that my bilge pumps are affected as nothing happening at the switches

[RobS]

Sometimes an installer may cut the bus bar since you don't need much hot but can run out of room for the switched connection points. So, if it is cut, part of one single bar can be hot and the other part is switched. The hot one would have a dedicated feed, the switched one would likely have a jumper from the other switched bar. When you say "hot" I assume you mean always hot regardless of your battery switch position. That is where the pumps and radio memory should be. Back-tracking to the 12V source is all you can do...

[special k]

as rob said i will back track to the source. as it is now seems i must have different feeds to each strip on the bus bar.

yes this bar was always hot regardless of the battery switch position. what is confusing is that when i first probed with my test light i accidently arced between the hot and ground at my windlass switch, then no power at all.

since this seems to supply my bilge pumps also i cannot imagine it is switched. i will post up any findings, thanks for the responses.

[special k]

o.k., found my problem, upper strip of my helm bus bar if fed from a 30a maxi fuse mounted below deck on the bulkhead. replaced that and now i can continue with my routine spring boat chores.
thanx all!