Switched and Unswitched Distribution

Question:

My boat is 41 years old and the previous owner made a mess of the house battery wiring. My questions is can I start out clean with two master busses?  One negative ground buss and one positive power buss?  I want to feed it with two battery banks with two shunts on the negative buss for monitoring batteries. The positive buss will have remote power disconnects to feed it and choose which bank to use. - Larry

Answer:

Hi Larry,

This setup definitely works but is not common. You should have an unswitched positive distribution for each battery bank (for instance battery chargers, solar controllers, bilge pumps, are connected here). In turn each battery bank can also be connected to a single common positive switched distribution. Effectively that gives you 3 positive distribution: 2 unswitched distribution (one for each battery bank) and 1 switched distribution that is connected to both unswitched distribution via battery switches. - Jeff