Electrical Day

And so it begins!  I'm now focusing on the core electronics and trying to get the critical components in place to let me turn over the engine.  The start of that journey was a concerted effort to get rid of all non-essential or inappropriate wires.  That ended up being a fair amount of lamp cord, a ton of non-tinned wire with brittle housing, and some unidentified sections.
And so it begins!  I'm now focusing on the core electronics and trying to get the critical components in place to let me turn over the engine.  The start of that journey was a concerted effort to get rid of all non-essential or inappropriate wires.  That ended up being a fair amount of lamp cord, a ton of non-tinned wire with brittle housing, and some unidentified sections.

One of the disturbing finds was this piece of wire, which obviously had a lackluster termination.  Moreover, it is suffering from severe corrosion, and was paper thin as well as a completely wrong size terminal.  This was one of the battery terminals, and yet another potential fire hazard.  I'm happy to say this wire it now in the garbage where it belongs, and a spool of ABYC compliant wire is en-route to me for replacement.

All of my boat's main DC backbone was 8 gauge non-tinned wire.  There are no heat shrinks, no double-crimped terminals...  Heck, they weren't even stripped to the right length as you can see in the picture.  I mean, every wire; Not just this one.

I had another great find while tracing one of my unidentified wires.  A poor quality butt splice had teed a connection for a 12V accessory plug into one of the cabin lighting circuits.  I traced this to the 12V socket, and decided to take the wires out to look at them more closely.  After removing the loosely wrapped electrical tape I discovered that a previous owner had decided that quick connectors are a bit too much effort to install.

Instead, they twisted the stripped end and looped it through the male connector.  Heck, it was tied in a knot so it ought to hold, right?  Wow.  Yet another fire waiting to happen, and this one was about about 16" from the fuel filter.  I won't even go into the use of non-tinned wire again.

Having exercised those demons I moved on to installing the new furniture.  I now have all batteries in place, which felt good.  I then mounted a new bus bar over the house bank to use as a positive aggregation point.  I then mounted the new raw water strainer as a place holder.


Next up was the Blue Seas ACR, which is placed directly behind the main DC panel.  I don't expect to need access to this device very often, so I put it where the sun doesn't shine.  And finally, right below the ACR I mounted the two auxiliary fuse blocks which will feed instruments and accessories.

I also managed to mount the final spinnaker pole bracket on deck.  I'd needed to leave it last trip out while the deck holes were drying from being potted.  That's the last of the deck hardware for now, so yet another piece of gear no longer cluttering the cabin.
One of the disturbing finds was this piece of wire, which obviously had a lackluster termination.  Moreover, it is suffering from severe corrosion, and was paper thin as well as a completely wrong size terminal.  This was one of the battery terminals, and yet another potential fire hazard.  I'm happy to say this wire it now in the garbage where it belongs, and a spool of ABYC compliant wire is en-route to me for replacement.

All of my boat's main DC backbone was 8 gauge non-tinned wire.  There are no heat shrinks, no double-crimped terminals...  Heck, they weren't even stripped to the right length as you can see in the picture.  I mean, every wire; Not just this one.




I had another great find while tracing one of my unidentified wires.  A poor quality butt splice had teed a connection for a 12V accessory plug into one of the cabin lighting circuits.  I traced this to the 12V socket, and decided to take the wires out to look at them more closely.  After removing the loosely wrapped electrical tape I discovered that a previous owner had decided that quick connectors are a bit too much effort to install.

Instead, they twisted the stripped end and looped it through the male connector.  Heck, it was tied in a knot so it ought to hold, right?  Wow.  Yet another fire waiting to happen, and this one was about about 16" from the fuel filter.  I won't even go into the use of non-tinned wire again.

Having exercised those demons I moved on to installing the new furniture.  I now have all batteries in place, which felt good.  I then mounted a new bus bar over the house bank to use as a positive aggregation point.  I then mounted the new raw water strainer as a place holder.


Next up was the Blue Seas ACR, which is placed directly behind the main DC panel.  I don't expect to need access to this device very often, so I put it where the sun doesn't shine.  And finally, right below the ACR I mounted the two auxiliary fuse blocks which will feed instruments and accessories.

I also managed to mount the final spinnaker pole bracket on deck.  I'd needed to leave it last trip out while the deck holes were drying from being potted.  That's the last of the deck hardware for now, so yet another piece of gear no longer cluttering the cabin.