Ground point

[Swedish Sea Ray]

Hello
I have changed the targa light to led on my 290 -96 and now i want à dimmer.
Because of that i need to find the ground point for that. There is à ground point behind the panel for the swithes but non was for the lights.
Anybody know where to look?

 

[JimG]

Should be the same ground for the switches and lights... all goes back to the negative side of the battery(s).

Not all LED work with dimmers. Not all dimmers work with LED's.

 

[Swedish Sea Ray]

The lights and dimmer works together but i need to find the exact minus cabel for the lights.
Maybe if someone knows where the different ground points are so i can look for the cabel

 

[PlayDate]

Where your DC fuse panel is located you will find a negative bus bar. As Jim pointed out there should be plenty of remote ground points that tie back to the negative bus bar. Your main DC negative bus bar appears to be located port side in the engine room. Factory wiring has DC negative as black wires.

 

[Swedish Sea Ray]

have found two ground point, one behind the switches and one in engine bay. Neither was for the lights. Any more sugestions?

 

[Lazy Daze]

I'm not sure what you're really after? As mentioned above, ALL negative grounds are tied together. You should be able to use any negative bus bar you want.

 

[Swedish Sea Ray]

i need to find the exakt negative cabel for the light therefor i look for groundpoints and removes cabel by cabel untill i find the exakt cabel for the lights, havent found it still

 

[PlayDate]

Let's see if we can sort this out.

You changed your lights to LED and now you want to add a dimmer. From your posts, it would appear your dimmer needs to intersect the ground side of the light circuit. Historically most electrical circuits used a rheostat to meter + voltage to the light. This approach does not work well with LEDs.

Unfortunately the only way to make it work is to run another set of wires to the light and intersect the ground.

 

[Lazy Daze]

May not have to run another set of wires all the way to the lights... just cut them at an easily accessible point? But it should be pretty easy to find to find the wires that go to the targa/spoiler lights by starting at the arch, or any wires that turn the corner behind the dash and go towards the arch.

Remove the speaker on the arch to find the wire - to at least get you a starting point. There's also cubby of some sort next to your right leg, right? You can remove that, too.

The only other ground point that I can think of would be behind your MDP in the cabin. Would be odd if that's where they were grounded, though.

Maybe you just missed it?

 

[PlayDate]

May not have to run another set of wires all the way to the lights... just cut them at an easily accessible point? But it should be pretty easy to find to find the wires that go to the targa/spoiler lights by starting at the arch, or any wires that turn the corner behind the dash and go towards the arch.

Remove the speaker on the arch to find the wire - to at least get you a starting point. There's also cubby of some sort next to your right leg, right? You can remove that, too.

The only other ground point that I can think of would be behind your MDP in the cabin. Would be odd if that's where they were grounded, though.

Maybe you just missed it?

I don't know his boat. What I do know is that they may be other devices on that ground wire (the ground wire usually has multiple connection points in the arch) so the safe bet is to run a wire(s) and isolate the lights ground. In my opinion, that is the fastest way to solve the problem and make sure that you are not creating another.

Further, I would probably run a pair of wires to the lights I want to dim rather that guess at the ground and what else might be on the 12v+ side of that circuit.