I am like no good at all when it comes time to ac or dc current. I can replace something existent, i am able to connect a positive on positive, and a neg on a neg... besides that i need help! So friend of mine came to change my radio and add a little amplifier... radio turned on since it was just a plug in on previous connector. When we tried to find pos i thought it would be very easy with the 3 bars ... nope! Are these all ground bars? I will run 2 new wires from battery anyways but could not believe i could not simply connect easy and quick... you know how fun it is finding the path for wires from engines compartment up to mid cabin?🤦🏻‍♂️

Does your boat have shore power hookup? These almost look like AC wires

Is that all factory wiring? Or has someone been in there after the fact? Something looks weird to me here...the wires are linked to the bus bars but i dont see whats feeding the bus bar with its respective line. For example...the black wires "would be" DC ground...but i dont see a thick ground wire feeding it..the wires all look the same gauge. If one of them is the feed line and you were to turn all the circuits on at the same time i t would fry the main ground wire. Unless this is the AC (115v) hot line
The green wires are "Usually" and AC ground wire or a Bonding wire...again i see no main feed line there.
And the white wires in an AC system would be neutral.

I have seen some "creative" ways of wiring things up when they have stuff at hand and don't want to do things properly.

I'd be a bit surprised if this was all AC power hookups and not being covered in some way to protect someone that would be working back there and all of it was live!

Jeff,

I agree. I HATE electrical. Something about not being able to SEE the leak.....

Time to get out a multi-meter and find continuity to a known ground. Like Wally said, if you've got shore power, find out if you have continuity between those green, white and black banks and the contacts in your shore connecter. Start there.

To be clear.... If your radio comes on, you definitely have a 12v hot line in there somewhere. My guess is that yellow, "40 AMP" wire is good place to start, after identifying a known DC ground.

Thanks. Brad.

I owned 2 Sonics, loved both of them but I’ll just say that their wiring was “creative at best”. Standard color coding was kicked to the curb for the most part. Good luck.

yep ! Shore power and yes A/C too. All seem to be factory built ! i am the third owner and knew the previous who had it 14 years, i am on my 10th year so the first one had it not even a full summer...

this is exactly where i get lost...
continuity and known ground are almost like chinese words to me ! the previous radio was still turning on, so i knew the new radio would also turn on by using the same power lines. the yellow wire you see with the 40 amp is not a
positive wire. it is the wire from the amplifier i just bought and install, so this one is actively looking for a hot wire ! wich i can't find...

Leading me to kinda have no other choices to start with 2 new wires from batterys... i know this way it should work... just took me like 2 hours just to find the right path to the engine compartment ! but i am now ready to attach wires and pull them to the front !

thanks for all your comments and suggestions everyones !