Well not blue, but light anyway. My girl has lights.
I wired a D.C circuit with four 10 watt lights in parallel. The first is in the bow of the v birth just aft of the cubby hole under the anchor locker (pictured), the second just forward of the forward bulkhead on the starboard in the v birth. the third over the forward sink the forth in the salon. Then i ran another circuit for the galley sink. I connected it (for test) to the battery and it worked!. I had nice warm lights.
The wire was 16 G boat cable. Used marine grade connectors, with heat shrink tubing. Used ratched crimpers, but still had a bad crimp every now and then. :cussing: The self adjusting strippers were worth the 20 bucks. they strip the outer jacked, then you reinsert both wires and they strip the wire cover. Those tools are the ones pictured.
I really wanted LED, but bought incandescent. I will change over to led as time goes by i hope.
Next is to protect the circut just after the switch panel with 15 amp fuses. I will use a common bus for the negative ground. I have the oday switch box that came with the boat. It has a common hot lead for the circuits.
I will run my mast and bow light along the port cabin shell liner. The wire puller i got is the only way to go. I was able to use it to thread the cable through most every angle and obstacle.
The voltage drop for 16 gauge is a little high for the length and current of the circuit. I could get some dimming if all lights are on at the same time. I did not feel any warmth at any connections with all lamps burning at the same time for over an hour so there is no heating problem that i found. 14 gauge would have been more appropriate as the length of the run was a little over 35 feet round trip accounting for turns etc. As i change over to LED the amps drops from around two to around .2 per lamp. That is a big savings
As a cost comparison, the LED cabin surface mounts are around $72 (defender marine), incandescent $29. Since I was buying six lamps (one is a swivel reading lamp) the extra cost really added up. However 250 feet of 16g boat cable is $85 dollars (genuinedealz.com) and 250 feet of 12 gauage boat cable is over $250!.
So it can be almost cheaper to use LED since you can use much smaller cable for your circuits.
ps. looks like the pictures didn't turn out, they are sideways and i can't get them to turn upright, they are upright on my computer. hmmmmm oh well
I wired a D.C circuit with four 10 watt lights in parallel. The first is in the bow of the v birth just aft of the cubby hole under the anchor locker (pictured), the second just forward of the forward bulkhead on the starboard in the v birth. the third over the forward sink the forth in the salon. Then i ran another circuit for the galley sink. I connected it (for test) to the battery and it worked!. I had nice warm lights.
The wire was 16 G boat cable. Used marine grade connectors, with heat shrink tubing. Used ratched crimpers, but still had a bad crimp every now and then. :cussing: The self adjusting strippers were worth the 20 bucks. they strip the outer jacked, then you reinsert both wires and they strip the wire cover. Those tools are the ones pictured.
I really wanted LED, but bought incandescent. I will change over to led as time goes by i hope.
Next is to protect the circut just after the switch panel with 15 amp fuses. I will use a common bus for the negative ground. I have the oday switch box that came with the boat. It has a common hot lead for the circuits.
I will run my mast and bow light along the port cabin shell liner. The wire puller i got is the only way to go. I was able to use it to thread the cable through most every angle and obstacle.
The voltage drop for 16 gauge is a little high for the length and current of the circuit. I could get some dimming if all lights are on at the same time. I did not feel any warmth at any connections with all lamps burning at the same time for over an hour so there is no heating problem that i found. 14 gauge would have been more appropriate as the length of the run was a little over 35 feet round trip accounting for turns etc. As i change over to LED the amps drops from around two to around .2 per lamp. That is a big savings
As a cost comparison, the LED cabin surface mounts are around $72 (defender marine), incandescent $29. Since I was buying six lamps (one is a swivel reading lamp) the extra cost really added up. However 250 feet of 16g boat cable is $85 dollars (genuinedealz.com) and 250 feet of 12 gauage boat cable is over $250!.
So it can be almost cheaper to use LED since you can use much smaller cable for your circuits.ps. looks like the pictures didn't turn out, they are sideways and i can't get them to turn upright, they are upright on my computer. hmmmmm oh well
