Problem with after market fuse box

Ok, need some help here. Yesterday I installed an extra fuse box under the hood, for assorted accessories and DIY projects. I ran the power wire straight from my battery as shown in instructions.

PROBLEM: Each terminal on the fuse block has voltage, even WITHOUT a fuse inserted.

What's wrong here?



Normal voltage with fuse in place.


Still have voltage with fuse removed.


So I removed all fuses and wires, leaving only the power wire connected, now each terminal reads just over 11 volts. Is this a faulty fuse box or did I do something wrong?

 

There will still be power on the "power in" side of the fuse. there is a gap that the fuse bridges to the "power out" side. is there current on the area you attach the wires to to go to the accessories? with a fuse there should be, with fuse removed no power.

 

It is the small amount of current flowing through the blown fuse indicator light. Put some real load on that circuit (like a light bulb) without a fuse, and the voltage will be Nil.

 

There is power to the "power out" post where you attach wires. Below I have pulled all fuses and removed all wires except the red power wire. VMeter red prong touching power out wire attachment post. Black prong grounded to truck body.

 

I put a load on one circuit (under hood LED's) with no fuse, red indicator light lit, power out post shows 7.8v.



LED strip glowing dimly.



Inserted fuse, LED's shine normally.

 

That led strip isn't very much of a load, but it shows the theory. If you connect an incandescent bulb like a headlamp, or just jump it to ground with the fuse removed, the voltage will drop to zero, and the blown fuse indicator will get brighter.

 

should there not be a negative terminal from the fuse box to ground? or in this scenario would you just ground each accessory independently?

 

If there's no bussed ground then yeah each accessory gets grounded separately.

On a side note the OPs fuse box sounds like a good way to run a battery down if you add any significant accessories to it.

 

Absolutely. I was going to ask the bridge because it's compact and simple. but I don't want a shity box

 

I would contact the manufacturer. I'd be pissed when I had a dead battery because of slow drains.