Cabin Light Wiring

[dna]

On our 1982 30" Hunter - iit appears that we have a break in the wiring of our cabin lights and are looking for suggestions on how to rewire through the headliner.

Get good voltage at, what I will call, Light A which is over the sink - but loose power between A and the reader lights (I will call B&C) and v-berth light (I will call D) on the starboard side. We have narrowed the loss to be between Light A and the first reader light B but cannot feel any wiggle of the wire to determine if pulling new wire is an option.

Any ideas will be great. I found a diagram of at http://www.ayesail.net/sailing/ManualsForHunter.html which the possible path, but we do not see any way to feed a wire in - it is very tight.

 

[Ed Schenck]

Had a very similar problem on my H37C. I had most of the lights on port but not on the other side of a bulkhead in the port quarterberth. And nowhere past that, companionway, galley, and all of starboard. The wire running from the nav table light to the q-berth was obviously open. No way I know of to run wire under the headliner.

I ran a new #12(I think) red from the back of the panel(switch) to along the toerail to get past the bulkhead. Then one of those stick-on channels to cover the ten inches of wire out to the quarterberth light. That completed the circuit and all the other lights are still working after eight years.

 

[dna]

I was afraid overhead was not going to be an option. But we are really new at this and just thought I would ask.

We do have 3 wires coming off the breaker - one for port lights, one for starboard, and one for bilge. Willl another #12 coming off that breaker just to control the reading and v-berth light cause a problem? I suppose not since it will basically be just covering the lights that were being controled by the starboard wire?

 

[Ed Schenck]

Nothing wrong with adding another wire to the starboard switch on the panel. But isn't your panel over on port? Can you not just jumper between "A" and "B"? You might even be able to get a wire from the "A" light under the headliner to the toerail an then back. I don't know your boat very well although I have sailed on Cherubini 30s.

 

[Benny]

I think it may be time to go to those battery powered LED fixtures as it is almost impossible to run wire under the headliner. Another alternative would be to wire on the surface and then cover the wiring with some moulding.