In planning my battery relocation and general rewiring I'll be adding some stuff. Cabin lighting, reading lamps, charge outlets in the berth areas for iThings etc. Is there a general rule of thumb I can follow as far as wire colors go aside from red + and black -?
Proper wire colour coding?
- Thread starter Macboy
- Start date
http://www.marinewireandcable.com/p/marine-wire-color-codes.html
Good luck on your work. Good connections make a secure and safe system.
Good luck on your work. Good connections make a secure and safe system.
Something you might consider is using small LED hockey puck wireless lights. You can get them for 15 or 20 bucks on eBay. Yes they use batteries, but they have red, green and white lights already in them and comes with a remote. It also has a dimmer and a auto timed shut off feature . I have a friend with a 32 Catalina that just put some in his boat and they look really good. Yes and yes ,,,, no wires.
I used the red (pos) black (neg) combination on both boats before learning that yellow is preferred for negative to avoid any confusion, since black is the 'hot' wire in AC wiring. I'm not going to change out the black to yellow but if I was doing it again from scratch would use the yellow for negative.
Get all my wiring here...
http://www.genuinedealz.com/
... good prices, little or no freight and fast service.
I just converted all the old fixtures in the Endeavour over to LED during our current trip but some friends gave us ...
https://www.amazon.com/Foxelli-USB-...8&qid=1520433278&sr=1-1&keywords=foxelli+mx10
... a couple of the headlamps like above and we pretty much wear them at night. Light goes everywhere with you, great for reading, great out on the deck or working down in the boat and they recharge with the USB port. Love them,
Sumner
=========================================================================
1300 miles to The Bahamas and Back in the Mac...
Endeavour 37 Mods...
MacGregor 26-S Mods...http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/endeavour-main/endeavour-index.html
Mac Trips to Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Canada, Florida, Bahamas
Get all my wiring here...
http://www.genuinedealz.com/
... good prices, little or no freight and fast service.
I just converted all the old fixtures in the Endeavour over to LED during our current trip but some friends gave us ...
https://www.amazon.com/Foxelli-USB-...8&qid=1520433278&sr=1-1&keywords=foxelli+mx10
... a couple of the headlamps like above and we pretty much wear them at night. Light goes everywhere with you, great for reading, great out on the deck or working down in the boat and they recharge with the USB port. Love them,
Sumner
=========================================================================
1300 miles to The Bahamas and Back in the Mac...
Endeavour 37 Mods...
MacGregor 26-S Mods...http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner/endeavour-main/endeavour-index.html
Mac Trips to Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Canada, Florida, Bahamas
No one follows any standards it seems. I've tried to label as many circuits as possible behind the panel(s)
Here's one standard: https://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/document.do?docId=80. No idea how well adopted it might be. @Maine Sail commented at https://forums.sailboatowners.com/index.php?threads/wiring-dilemma.129923/, and his thoughts are always worth listening to.
My understanding is that yellow is now preferred vs. black for DC negative wiring. The reasoning is that black is the standard for AC 'hot' (in residential home wiring and marine installs too). And the risk of confusing DC negative and AC hot might be small, but the consequences could be disastrous.
On my boat, I used some black before I knew that. I don't have any AC onboard, so I haven't gone back and rewired those earlier systems, but you might want to stick with yellow in case you do want to connect to shore power.
My understanding is that yellow is now preferred vs. black for DC negative wiring. The reasoning is that black is the standard for AC 'hot' (in residential home wiring and marine installs too). And the risk of confusing DC negative and AC hot might be small, but the consequences could be disastrous.
On my boat, I used some black before I knew that. I don't have any AC onboard, so I haven't gone back and rewired those earlier systems, but you might want to stick with yellow in case you do want to connect to shore power.
Aircraft wiring is nearly all white wire. Each wire is labeled per system, circuit, wire segment in that circuit. This system can easily be adapted to a boat. I print off wire labels from a laser printer then slip them under clear heat shrink. The label can be read through the heat shrink for wire/circuit identification. You can use this system while using Red for Positive and Yellow for Negative connections. Somehow you still need to know if that yellow wire in a bundle is for the lights, bilge pump, or charging system.
Navigation light, mast head light, steaming light...
Navigation light, mast head light, steaming light...