More confusion about bus bars

[BaitCaster]

I installed the bus bar on my boat yesterday and wiored my bilge pump and aerator through it, but they would not work. My bus bar has two rows of screws (sorrey no pics). I wiored the two negative leads from the pumps as well as the lead to the battery all on the same side and the pumps wouldn't work. I then tried wiring the leasd to the batery on the other row and it still wouldn't work. When I wired the negative leads directly to the battery they worked fine. What am I doing wrong?

 

[vanbc]

How do you have the wires attached ? If they are attached by screw or wingnut maybe some have better conductivity than others.
Just a thought, but im no expert

 

[Zum]

I'm confused on what your trying to descibe,sorry.
A picture/diagram would be worth a 1000 words.
Do you have a mutli-meter?

 

[TNtroller]

do you have the bus bar grounded, as in a single lead from the neg on the bus bar to the neg on the batt?

 

[RivRunR]

Pretty hard to know for sure without a model / pic of the bus bar, but it sounds like it might be that all the connections (screws) are common to whatever lead you have connected. In other words, they are all either Pos or Neg depending on which lead from the battery is connected. That could be why they worked when you took the grounds directly to the battery, because you left only positive on the bar. That's the way mine are, and I run one for positive leads and another one for grounds. If that's the case, and you have to buy a second "bus bar," you might want to just get a fuse panel for the positive side and kill 2 birds with one stone.

 

[linehand]

Sounds like you have an isolation block. directly across from each screw same potential, next row down isolated? Check continuity at each point on the "buss bar" if you have an ohm meter. Or just hook neg battery across from each component wire one at a time to figure it out.