So after I brought home my new battery and electrical system parts, I was eager to test and see what works and what doesn't. I didn't even really know how the Perko battery switch wires up since I bought it used from eBay sans instructions. I am only using one battery so that simplfy things a bit. When I am ready to upgrade, I need to make sure I know how to hook the batteries up so they are parallel when the Perko switch in on both of them. That's a future post. Back to this story. So I used some existing wires I stripped out of the boat to test the circuit. I hooked up the battery to the swithc and panel and connected the 22 year old dome light to one of the switches on the panel. It looked something like this:
I timidly switch the perko on battery one and after flipping the toggle on the panel, I saw this:
Halleluja! It worked. And on first try at that. I don't pretend to be an expert on electrical systems and flares and sparks are a common sight when I'm near a project. This however fell into place perfected. I just used a little common sense in figuring out where the wires need to go and without much effort, I have a circuit lighting a 12-volt light bolt. I know this is a simple test but it means I saved about $30 in not having to buy a new panel. I proceeded to test each connection using the light and all seems to be working perfectly. The next job will be to install the system into the boat. Stay tuned.
