What's Wrong With This Picture?

Maine Sail

Maine Sail

.
Feb 6, 1998
11,709
Canadian Sailcraft 36T Casco Bay, ME
I took this photo yesterday.... It's an AC panel equipped with a 30A main AC breaker with four 15A branch breakers. It feeds a water heater, battery charger, outlets and one breaker is used as a spare.

Aside from:
Improper grounding (which can't really be entirely seen)
Some improperly non-factory crimped terminals
Sawdust
Corrosion
Unsecured neutral/grounding bus bar


What's really wrong with it????



First one to get it wins a self applied chest thump, followed by two self applied thumbs up gestures..:D
 
woodster

woodster

.
Sep 15, 2009
6,243
S2 9.2a Fairhope Al
i dont see where the common is wired through the main breaker......

regards

woody
 
M

maxrdr

.
Dec 19, 2011
19
Hunter 310 Lake Oolagah, Oolagah, OK
If it were my jumble of wiring, I would at least know the most likely place for a fire to start and want to organize and afix all components and then set about labeling the wires, plus address the 'aside list' above provided by MS. But, I would start with understanding the purpose of the red jumper wires shown on the right side component.
 
Stan Breaux

Stan Breaux

.
Feb 8, 2007
141
Catalina 36 MKII Pensacola Beach, FL
Not sure exactly what I'm saying here, but it looks like they have connected two of the breakers together with that short red wire on th right side, which I think would mean the breaker is essentially bypassed??
 
Maine Sail

Maine Sail

.
Feb 6, 1998
11,709
Canadian Sailcraft 36T Casco Bay, ME
woodster said:
i dont see where the common is wired through the main breaker......

regards

woody
Click to expand
Wow first post is a winner!!!!

What is wrong with that photo is that;

In a marine application the double pole main breaker is intended to interrupt both the NEUTRAL/WHITE wire and the BLACK/HOT wire. The main breaker should never be jumpered like that to break only the BLACK/HOT wire.

Yes red is also an improper color to be used on this particular panel. Red wire denotes 12V DC + or one leg of a 240V AC system. This is a 120V system and as such only BLACK/HOT, WHITE/NEUTRAL and GREEN/SAFETY GROUND are to be used not red..

The other major issue on this boat was that the AC/DC grounding bond tie was non-existent. The GREEN AC safety ground wire is to be tied to the ships DC grounding bus, it was not.

OK now thump chest and give two thumbs up!!

This is what the panel looked like a few hours later. Notice the difference in how it is wired. The top two wires, white and black are the AC input from shore. Out the bottom of the breaker the white leads back to the AC neutral bus and the black feeds the individual branch circuit breakers.




IF your boat is not wired to interrupt both BLACK/HOT and WHITE/NEUTRAL, in a fault, please get this fixed..
 
Maine Sail

Maine Sail

.
Feb 6, 1998
11,709
Canadian Sailcraft 36T Casco Bay, ME
Stan Breaux said:
Not sure exactly what I'm saying here, but it looks like they have connected two of the breakers together with that short red wire on th right side, which I think would mean the breaker is essentially bypassed??
Click to expand
The red wires on the "branch breakers" are on the LINE/IN side not the LOAD/OUT side. The branch breakers are fed the the BLACK/HOT (red in the first pic) wire from the MAIN breaker to their LINE side. The loads and LED indicator light get wired to the LOAD side of the breaker.

 
Chris Patterson

Chris Patterson

.
Oct 17, 2011
2,809
Ericson 29 Southport..
Maine, that's not exactly correct. That is called a "free floating buss bar", and it's for cooling purposes.

So that when it catches on fire, it will burn independently of the rest of the boat.

(I was hard pressed to find anything RIGHT about it).
 
Maine Sail

Maine Sail

.
Feb 6, 1998
11,709
Canadian Sailcraft 36T Casco Bay, ME
Chris Patterson said:
Maine, that's not exactly correct. That is called a "free floating buss bar", and it's for cooling purposes.

So that when it catches on fire, it will burn independently of the rest of the boat.

(I was hard pressed to find anything RIGHT about it).
Click to expand
Technically an "air cooled isolated bus bar"....;)

There was very little right about it..... Sadly this is better than many of them.....:doh:A boat I was on a few weeks ago was well equipped with a full suite of SquareD residential breakers including a single pole main 50A "main" breaker on 10 GA wire..........:eek: On and the safety ground was not even connected to ANYTHING including shore power.......
 
Kermit

Kermit

.
Jul 31, 2010
5,673
AquaCat 12.5 17342 Wateree Lake, SC
Maine Sail said:
I took this photo yesterday.... It's an AC panel equipped with a 30A main AC breaker with four 15A branch breakers. It feeds a water heater, battery charger, outlets and one breaker is used as a spare.
What's really wrong with it???? quote]
The horizon is crooked. Try to hold your camera level next time. Other than that, it's a nicely-made photograph.
Click to expand
 
Chris Patterson

Chris Patterson

.
Oct 17, 2011
2,809
Ericson 29 Southport..
This is on one of my projects, (not mine). Looks like something on a 1940's farm house.

I haven't opened it up yet, I'm not sure when my last tetanus shot was..

(Oh yeah, the fuel tank is just out of frame, right beside this train wreck).
 

Attachments

Bill Roosa

Bill Roosa

.
Jun 6, 2006
6,990
currently boatless wishing Harrington Harbor North, MD
you know if you "gang" those CBs in a row and add a neutral buss it makes for;
a) the use of a hot buss bar to power all the secondaries
b) gives you more room for other secondary CBs
c) makes it a whole lot cleaner looking wiring as you can run all the secondary circuits in bundles and not the spaghetti wiring shown.

Probably the reason ALL house CB panels are arranged that way and most factory boat panels too.
 
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