Crestliner VT17 Accessory switch

[rwortman]

First post. After a long time of not fishing because of where I lived, I retired, moved and bought a nice clean 2011 VT-17 with a 75 Opti. I have been doing a few things to it just to clean it up and tweak it a bit. One of the first things was replacing a cracked trolling motor direction indicator and cleaning up the hack job someone did wiring up the front graph. While doing this, I noticed that the switch labelled "accessory" on the console switch panel doesn't seem to turn anything on or off but the LED indicator on the switch itself. Is this supposed to do something? I am wondering if the same hacker bypassed it. The in dash, front deck and ram mount graphs are all hot all the time. Anything else you might call an accessory like a livewell pump or nav light has its own circuit. The boat "owners manual" is useless. Generic information about boating. Nothing specific to any boat. There is a hot wire going to the switch and a wire coming off of it but it just disappears into the harness.

Other things I did: Remove center seat and replace with console with storage, put on a less cheesy steering wheel, add Vessel View adapter to motor and RAM mount for cell phone on console, I am about to pull out the two battery on board charger and replace it with a three battery unit.

[Bill Reynolds]

The accessory switch is normally attached to a connection block under the console and another in the bow. The intent is to provide a single point to hook graphs etc that the power can be controlled from a single switch. You should be able to see this connection block by looking up under the console. Sounds like the previous owner did connect the graphs to this block.

[rwortman]

Thanks. I didn't find a connection block in the bow when I was fixing that wiring Just some pigtails coming out of the harness that were not switched. Maybe if I dug around some more. The PO had the bow graph connected to trolling motor power. I moved it to those other wires and added a weatherproof plug. Not a big deal. I was just curious.

[Lowerider58]

It’s probably not wired to anything If it only has 2 wires to it. I expect one wire is 12 volt positive and the other is the ground for the LED. If there is a third empty terminal it would be the one that gets power when the switch is turned on. My Triton 18TX had an unused accessory switch on the dash and I used it to power my Point1 antenna.

[alanhore]

On my 2013 vt17 the switch does not turn anything on or off. I used it to power my led deck and compartment lights. Mine is a 3 position switch if I remember right.

[rwortman]

Thanks for the replies. I moved the power wires for the in dash and RAM mounted sonars to the switch so I can turn them off with a push when I am done. I would like to connect the wire that is going to the bow to it as well but I am trying to think of a way to find it easily. The PO had the bow sonar connected to the trolling motor connector in a kind of hack job. There was a 12v wire up there as part of the harness that had no voltage due to corroded fuse holder. Fixed that and hooked it up to the sonar. It is hot all the time and it's not easy to figure out where the other end is with no wiring diagram. Running another wire up there is to much of a PIA to be worth it.