I am trying to hook up a live-well in my boat, it's a mayfair pump system and I have a toggle switch I bought from Bass Pro Shops.

it runs fine when the toggle switch is in the on position, but when it's off then it sparks and the wires heat up. I've tried 3 different switches, different wire combinations and everything.

here are some pictures

here is the switch i have, the 2 brown wires are the positive coming from the pump and battery. the black and brown wires are the negative coming from the same places.

here is the whole setup i have, the 2 wires on the bottom go to the battery, i can only have the positive hooked up when its off or else it will spark like crazy.

Pretty sure you have to wire battery positive to one side of the swirtch and pump positive to other side of the switch then just connect negative pump wire to negative battery side. End up with two positive wires connected to switch and one negative connecting pump and battery

thanks alot, ill tell you what works tomorrow

yes.. when you have the negative on with the positive itll throw sparks. like when you touch your battery jumper cables together on accident. the switch just puts power through tthe positive side to the livewell. your negative completes the cycle back to the battery, no need to be on a switch. lucky this hasnt caught fire.