eenie, meenie, minie, moe

[RoyS]

Be advised, the eenie meenie is broken! I used to get the right choice 50% of the time with the eenie meenie, but no more. Has been failing regularly for a few years now. Just look at the world situation; all politicians use the eenie meenie for major decisions (as they actually know nothing) and look at the results! Abandon the eenie meenie until further notice.

 

[Crazy Dave Condon]

Looking at the mast photo, ids the hole about half way up the mast? If so could it be a steaming light? If so can it be turned on and check if 12 volt electrical is on?

 

[jviss]

Getting back to the original poster's questions, mostly because I find this thread so interesting.

Why do I keep finding electrical wires - positive and negative - both the same color?

Because they go to loads (devices) for which polarity doesn't matter, like incandescent light fixtures.

I’m trying to contact a new mid-mast nav light but can’t connect it to electricity until the mast is up, any suggestions?

If it's an LED fixture for which polarity matters, just connect it to the two blacks arbitrarily, and if it doesn't light up when the mast is in and wires connected, just swap the two wires going to that fixture.

If you don't know the correspondence of wires from the device to the base of the mast, then you need determine continuity as others have suggested. But, that should already be marked or use keyed connectors, as it is really not related to replacing the device.

 

[jssailem]

OK... Let me reflect on what I think you are telling us.

Your MAST in laying down across your boat so you can work on it.
You removed an old fixture that was in the middle of the mast. Most likely a light that looks something like this...


You want to replace it with the same to fill the hole but the wiring is confusing.

Ok. Builders (also Previous Owners) on some boat electrical projects took short cuts. They ran a single hot wire up the mast connecting the various loads (light bulbs) in series to the hot lead. They did not concern themselves with wire color. They used was readily available. Black worked the same as red or green. This also saved them on the cost of switches. One switch all lights on the mast come on.

If you want a different setup that works better on "your" boat (a good idea), then follow the suggestion to use the existing wires to pull new properly colored wires up the mast. Be sure that you plan the whole system. You only need a single ground wire (now usually yellow - or old school black) if you are planning to use LED lights or lightbulbs for a multi light fixture on the mast head. You will need a ground wire for the mid mast lights (ie steaming or deck). You will need separate load wires (red wire) to match the number of switched circuits you want. ie: Spreader Lights, Steaming Light, Anchor light, Nav lights...

 

[jviss]

John, much as I like and respect you, and appreciate all the good content and advice you provide here, I'm afraid I must disagree on a couple of your points.

They ran a single hot wire up the mast connecting the various loads (light bulbs) in series to the hot lead.

I have never seen this. Perhaps in parallel, in series you'd drop voltage across each load.

One switch all lights on the mast come on.

I've never seen this, either. Doesn't make sense for nav, steaming, foredeck, spreaders, etc.

follow the suggestion to use the existing wires to pull new properly colored wires up the mast.

Not usually possible, in my experience, given how wires are often secured inside the mast: in tie-wrapped bundles, etc.

You only need a single ground wire (now usually yellow - or old school black) if you are planning to use LED lights or lightbulbs for a multi light fixture on the mast head.

Not recommended. Especially with nav lights, which require a 3% max. drop. Good practice is a separate power and ground wire, all the way back to the panel, for each load. I know many (most?) boatbuilders cheat on this, but that's the way it should be done. A reasonable middle ground (pun intended) is a ground bus at the mast step, and a hefty ground back to the distribution panel.

I wish the ABYC would publish an inexpensive, or even free handbook for mariners like us, like "ABYC for Dummies." I admit, I'm a dummy, too. I don't have the money, time, or retention to read and remember the entire electrical standard.

 

[capta]

Therein lies the problem. Which wire is positive! Can’t just designate and don’t have power to test since mast is laying on boat and not connected to electricity.

That's pretty easy to remedy. Use a 9 volt battery connected to the wires to figure out which wire is which. On the wires going to the wries in the mast, a 12 volt bulb wired to a couple if alligator clips should help. If you are interested in polarity a VOM will do the trick.

 

[Davidasailor26]

I wish the ABYC would publish an inexpensive, or even free handbook for mariners like us, like "ABYC for Dummies."

They do offer a recreational boater membership for $190/yr. Not especially inexpensive, but if someone were doing a major refit it might be worth it, and a small percentage of the total effort cost.

I find Nigel Calder’s Boatowners Mechanical and Electrical Manual to be the next best thing. It does a pretty good job of calling out the relevant ABYC and ISO specs, and giving some context for them.

 

[johey]

I boat my boat from an electrical engineer. I didn't have your problem. Instead I had purple wires, blue wires, multicolored wires, etc. all over the boat. In some ways worse, but in some ways I could at least know that the purple one was the single purple one, so if I saw that going to the negative bar, I could see the the brown/yellow striped one must be the positive.

 

[Crazy Dave Condon]

@Plymouth Sailor
it would help to know the year, mfg and model of your boat when posting an issue to attract comments from other sailors who own the same boat.

Years ago, wire color coding changed. It use to be DC ground or negative was black. AC positive is black as well. To Differentiate which is which, DC ground or negative color is now yellow. I am not sure when that took affect but it was before 2010

 

[jviss]

AC positive is black as well.

Whoops! There's no such thing as "AC positive," it's AC "hot," the ungrounded side of the feed; the white is the grounded side.

 

[Crazy Dave Condon]

You are right AC black is hot. Still the wire coding for DC black was changed to yellow.
I have seen a lot in my lifetime of screw ups. Once a dealer whose son was not an electrician, installed a dual battery system, shore power and battery charger. All wires were black. The owner was a nurse and she use to wear big glasses. The wires were not hooked up to the dual battery system of course all black which she started hooking up. Battery blew up in her face. She decided to purchase a new hunter 27 not from the local dealer but from me. I took her older boat in trade. It would take an hour to describe what was wrong in that installation. I then along with others in our industry got the color of DC GROUND CHANGED TO YELLOW

 

[RoyS]

I boat my boat from an electrical engineer. I didn't have your problem. Instead I had purple wires, blue wires, multicolored wires, etc. all over the boat. In some ways worse, but in some ways I could at least know that the purple one was the single purple one, so if I saw that going to the negative bar, I could see the the brown/yellow striped one must be the positive.

With regard to Electrical Engineers: Another dangerous defect in their approach to electrical wiring is to overthink the issue. They will often carefully calculate the load on a particular device or circuit and determine that they can run AWG 22 GA wire because the load is minimal. A tywrap pulled tight on a 22 GA wire may likely break it as it has little mechanical strength. With 22 GA wire, you hardly need a fuse as it will burn open with ease under load.

 

[jviss]

With regard to Electrical Engineers: Another dangerous defect in their approach to electrical wiring is to overthink the issue. They will often carefully calculate the load on a particular device or circuit and determine that they can run AWG 22 GA wire because the load is minimal. A tywrap pulled tight on a 22 GA wire may likely break it as it has little mechanical strength. With 22 GA wire, you hardly need a fuse as it will burn open with ease under load.

That's knocking electrical engineers, with a pretty broad brush. Nonsense. EEs don't just do circuits, they develop best practices as well.

FWIW, ABYC calls for 16 ga. minimum, if I recall correctly. I know some vendors supply equipment with smaller wires, and a lot of signal wire, like NMEA, is smaller than 16, but it is always stranded, and not likely to break under a tie wrap unless it's an over-sized tie wrap that's gorilla-tight.

Question: How much current do you think it will take to fuse-open a 22 ga. conductor, solid or stranded?

Answer: for copper wire, a little over 40A.

 

[FastOlson]

Might be good to step back from all keyboards and count to ten, slowly.
....even when you are correct......
(sigh)
Remember, it's the internet, and nothing is actually real...

 

[Head Sail]

I boat my boat from an electrical engineer. I didn't have your problem. Instead I had purple wires, blue wires, multicolored wires, etc. all over the boat.

That's due to the difference between an electrical engineer and electrician.

 

[jviss]

That's due to the difference between an electrical engineer and electrician.

That's actually a good point. In this case, though, a marine electrician.