I'd be completely overwhelmed by a project of the magnitude, but even I know to rewire with the same wire gauge as the old wiring. What was the "expert" thinking?
Arghhh...
- Thread starter Maine Sail
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BTW Maine. I may have missed it in your -how to- articles, but how exactly do YOU measure current draw on a circuit?
(This isn't a jab, I'm genuinely curious).
(This isn't a jab, I'm genuinely curious).
Depends what boat I am working on. If on my own boat I have two ammeters and can isolate that circuit and know the current. If on customers boats without ammeters or battery monitors I use a DC clamp meter.
If I am chasing parasitic loads I will often insert my non-clamp DVM into the circuit on the 2A or 10A current setting.
The primary clamp meter I use is a Fluke 376 which can do up to 1000 DC amps and can also capture in-rush, min, max and average. I also have a Mastech MS2108 which is a lot less money but is a pretty sloppy meter. It's my beater clamp. It's pretty good for large currents but not as accurate on small, under 1A loads where the Fluke works quite well and it can't do DC in-rush.
The Fluke 376 is worth its weight in gold. Probably too expensive for a DIY but you'd need to peel it from my dead fingers to get me to part with it..
This is the 376 measuring the in-rush starting current on a Universal M-25
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