Grounding on an aluminum pontoon 12v dc

[ezrollin]

I have done some research on this and found some conflicting answers.The general consensus is to never ground to the boat hull and yet I have found some aluminum boat manufacturers actually have a ground stud on their boat. I have some self grounding 12v led nav. lights that are very low current and would only be on at night and only when the boat was moving,which would be seldom. so I'm not worried about galvanic action.Anyone know what the stud on some metal boats is for, possibly a "safety" for 120v ac dock side power ?

[Bamaman]

I've never noticed a ground on my new boat. I do remember when my father ran over the romex cable to our boat house with the lawn mower, and he spliced the wires back--white to black, black to white.

I came into the boathouse that night and the nose of my pontoon boat sparked when it touched the steel cables. My father just never used his reading glasses, and he couldn't see the colors of the wires.

He wondered why all those dead fish had been floating around our boathouse. Polarity does matter on electric motors. And it's very important to have all dock electricity properly wired.

[MH Hawker]

Its one of those odd areas, your told not to ground any thing to the boat frame and ground it all back to the neg post on the battery, and yet the neg wire at the battery goes directly to the motor as a frame ground. My guess is its so the motor is the ground point so that any stray voltage is attracted to the sacrificial anode that erodes like its should and not the LU. I have never had a boat with shore power but i would think the grounds are independent of the boat its self and not connected to the hull for GFI reasons.

[HandymanHerb]

My toon has no grounds, everything grounds back to the battery through my wiring