Newbie Yacht Re-Wire HELLLPPPPPPPPPP

[Ilan Voyager]

I stay old school and I weld, but with some precautions:

1/ I use only first class electronic tin and a electric solder adapted to the size of the wire. Never a gas solder.
2/ I never solder the connection directly in a T. I bend the wire to be connected at right angle, I glue it to the other cable (a drop of cyano) and I solder after so the electric junction has no stress nor vibration.
3/ I seal with a light coat of high temp silicone.
4/ I finish with a butyl tape (3M works well) slightly heated to 45 celsius degrees, so I get a tighter seal.
Sometimes I use a piece of clear silicone tubing and I fill it with a high temp silicone.
Wires are never allowed to move in the boat, being tightly braced, always protected by a piece of rubber pipe, but I leave always a little extra at each junction so the wire can expand, retract and vibrate without stressing (a bit like on hydraulic tubing) the connection.

I'm very cautious with AC 120 or 240 and sea water so I make a sealed special panel and extra insulation precautions. The quality of the wire plastic insulation is crucial. Some, after a while, can become porous and leak electricity. I tend to make electric circuits theoretically able to work underwater.

For the colors I stay with the most common code. Green or yellow striped green for earth, and white for the negative, so I know that any different color is a live (positive) wire.

As I do love the ingenuity of the conception of breakers, I have the idiosyncrasy to use a lot of them and as close as possible to the electronic device to protect. When possible I prefer 24 volts, first because of ohm's law, second as I can feed the 12 volt electronic devices through a regulator.

Never had an electric problem, even with the worst vibrating diesels. But there are other good ways and I'm not writing the law on stone.

And as many have said already, a good book about boat's electricity is a must. Finally it's something simple but that must be done with great care. It's the place for an amateur as he can take the extra care that can´t be done by a professional electrician simply because it would be too expensive, and time consuming.

[CDK]

Originally Posted by Ilan Voyager

For the colors I stay with the most common code. Green or yellow striped green for earth, and white for the negative, so I know that any different color is a live (positive) wire.

Unfortunately it isn't that simple.
In low voltage wiring the minus is black, +12V is red. Except when you are French, than it is the other way around.
In AC wiring, most countries use blue for neutral, brown for the live wire and black for a switched live wire. The only one we never expect to carry a voltage is the green/yellow one.

[Ilan Voyager]

True in cars. Not mandatory at my knowledgein boats. There are years I haven't read anything about color codes so surely ISO or another has done a paper on the subject.
The work I missed was house electricity common code. Also as I'm color blind I stay with this code for evident reasons and never use pale and delicate colors but rather contrasted or I'll go in trouble.
How do go your transmission and propellers?

[CDK]

Hello Voyager.
I will write about the results soon, but to give exact figures I need to calibrate the rev. counters first. I did some tests that left me with mixed feelings....

[Ilan Voyager]

Bad luck...sometimes things do not want to work as we hope.

[thudpucker]

I agree with that stiffening. Normally wires break from vibration and corrosion right at the treminal end. Heat shrink is good and strapping the wires down just close to the terminal ends is good too. Those engines move a lot and often and frequently too.

I've re-wired as necessary a lot of instances. On one old boat I pulled a bunch of house wire out. It had been in there for years and was still working good. Solid wire with no problems.

[Landlubber]

thudpucker,

Please don't go there, solid wire on a boat has no place at all, it is in fact not allowed under many society and ABYC rules, this could be misleading to someone trying to do the "right" thing.

[thudpucker]

LOL, OK we wont go back to 1949 and pull up an old abandoned sumpinorother off the muddy bottom of Lake Washington.
I learn everything the hard way. I didnt know Solid wire was a bad thing for years after that.

I've worked on boats with guys and for guys, and the boats were just one PITA after another.
Wiring problems at the Terminal ends were about 60% or more of the intermittent things that made boating such an iffy thing. If you cant count on your boat performance while your out, its just not possible to enjoy the experience.
That wiring is a large part of 'confidence' and solid wires are a large part of Hacking that leads to no-confidence boating.

NO! on solid wires!

[737guru]

Back on thread slightly, does anyone know of a box which takes shore pwr and alternator IN and two batts (house/starting) out? I can see lots of box's, sterling seem to be the best, which do either the shore pwr OR the alternator. I think Ill be going for the sterling 160A A to B Charger, does onyone have experience of these, and do you think the add on digital panel is worth getting?

The rewire has to happen in the next few weeks, I've completed the deisel heater instalation - best thing since sliced bread, I might retro fit a cockpit outlet LOL for up the legs sailing in winter........

The main problem with most the books is that they deal with each system aspect individually, there is not a lot of help when it comes to looking at a system from an intergrated point of view, if anyone has a circuit diagram and pro's con's that would be most helpful, and give me a starting point.

Of course, many many thanks in advance,

737guru.

[marshmat]

Hey 737,

Not sure if you've come across it yet, but Nigel Calder's "Boatowner's Mechanical and Electrical Manual" is pretty good for this sort of thing... including the "integrated point of view" and circuit diagrams you're looking for.

My personal preference would be for double alternators and a totally separate starting circuit- use the piddly little thing that comes with the motor to charge the starting battery and run the engine electrics, and add your own beefy, externally regulated alternator to charge the house bank. If you like, there could be a normally-open switch joining the two in case you need to start the engine from the house bank in an emergency.

With inverter technology where it's at these days, I'd be tempted to run the shorepower directly into a properly isolated, marine rated, high frequency switching battery charger- with nothing else connected to the shorepower side. The boat's AC systems would then run off the inverters. I've seen such chargers available that can handle 40 to 70 Hz at 90 to 280 V, ie. can be plugged in to any shorepower outlet in the world with no electrical compatibility problems.

Of course, the sort of boats I hang around are too small and too simple to have much need for this gear, so for me it's largely an academic exercise while working on ideas for larger craft. Depending on your needs, you may well come up with something very different....

[thudpucker]

In my midget experiences, I liked to keep the Starting battery and starting circuit separate from all that other stuff.