Fringe Benefits of Upgrading

[Roger Long]

Or, maybe it's a primary benefit. You find things like this:

As they say in the lottery ads, "Just Imagine!". Full battery current running to ground though the air intake housing which contains an oil soaked piece of plastic foam. This is why every battery should have a fuse right on the terminal post.

The Compass Marine Services (Maine Sail) guided electrical upgrade is off to a good start. The strange old battery switch had a small hole for a shaft that was too large for the pilot of a hole saw. I made this template which I fastened to the panel with the mounting screws for the old Perko switch. It also had template holes for the new switch's mounting bolts.

Thanks to Maine Sail for the tip of running the hole saw backwards. Cuts beautifully in the Plam with no chatter or chipping. The hole in the plywood guided it in perfectly.

I'm going to just fill in the old switch markings with an artists brush and black paint.

I lucked out on the hole for the Victron battery monitor. It fits perfectly in the hole left by the discarded analogue voltmeter. I'm going to put a warning light in the old selector switch hole below and wire it into the relay contact on the Victron for low battery indication.

Now this question: After removing the old and corroded ground buss bar for replacement with a new Blue Sea bar, will I be able to find EVERY single ground wire in this mess?

It didn't look quite that bad before I cast everything loose, honest.

 

[Stu Jackson]

It's the BLACK ones...?!?

 

[Roger Long]

It's the BLACK ones...?!?

The originals are all yellow on this boat. It's the black ones that worry me because one could fall down and hide in the dark recesses.

 

[Merlin Clark]

I was going to say to attach to the new bar as you take each one off the old bar like doing sparkplug wires ....
What is "plam"? Is it the plastic the panel is made of?

 

[Roger Long]

What is "plam"? Is it the plastic the panel is made of?

Commonly known as "Formica" much to the disgust of other manufacturers of the stuff.

Here is the revised panel except for the low battery warning light:

 

[Merlin Clark]

Looks great Roger!

 

[DanM]

Nice work and some great photos Roger.

I'd be curious how the Victron monitor works out for you, I've had some problems with the history function on mine and I have yet to find someone to compare notes with that has used one.

I posted the question on the C30 forum though so I don't want to hijack any of your work here.

Take care, DanM.

 

[TomY]

Good point on the dead short. We had one last summer, and 6 feet of 12 gauge wire burned like a dynamite fuse through the engine compartment. It was the line that supplies power to the alternator. I had swapped our regulator a few days earlier, and because I expected to be returning to the old regulator soon, I did a sloppy job tieing up the wires.

In a lumpy Nantucket Sound, a loop found the only hot spot on the exhaust and melted the insulation.

What was amazing was that this un fused line from alternator to instrument panel, didn't burn through the 12 gauge wire. It simply incinerated the plastic insulation from the exhaust elbow quickly through the wire into the instrument panel. It was a hot incinerating flame to anything nearby.

The only reason it stopped, is I have a manual switch in the engine panel to the alternator, which I killed. The key would have done the same.

I'm doing some wiring now including battery cables and I'm spending a lot of time getting things tied up correctly. I'll also fuse the line that supplies power to the engine panel and alternator.

If the battery cable dead shorts, you have a real problem. I don't have a fuse on any, but the runs are very short, less than 2 feet to the switches.

I've wondered why batteries can't have some sort of built in fuse in their terminal systems.
The danger from fires in a dead short are enormous on a boat.

 

[Roger Long]

I've wondered why batteries can't have some sort of built in fuse in their terminal systems.

If your batteries have bolt style terminals as opposed to the automotive type (many have both), the Blue Sea fuses that are like a 1" square thick washer that go onto an "L" shaped piece of metal are very compact and cheap for the protection they provide.