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Ericson Electrical System Upgrades

Jim Lewis

New Member
Lots of posts about fuses & breakers on other BB's. Caution to all novice electricians/do it your selfers - Don't just install new breaker panels. You need both circuit protection & equipment protection. Breakers generally don't come in assorted sizes to protect your individual loads for the newer goodies we upgrade our boats with. For failsafe equipment protection, you still need individual fuses that are properly sized for each component. Try to view breakers as "circuit protection" and fuses as "component protection". Typical breakers approved for marine use are of generic design and have non-adjustable "instantaneous" and "time over current" trip settings. View them as circuit protection (to protect your wiring, etc.) Fuses are available in so many sizes & types (and are cheap) and do a good job of protecting todays equipment. What I mean is don't connect all your navigation equipment to one 15 or 20 amp breaker without having each piece of equipment indivually fused at the manufactures recommended fuse size. An example: Raytheon states to use a 6 amp fuse to protect one of their radar units. It may only draw 3.2 amps under normal operation. If you don't have fuse protection, and just connect it to a 20 amp breaker, you can end up with extensive damage to the unit when the unit fails - ie: total replacement verses component replacement. Even if you were to use a 5 amp breaker, it won't trip fast enough to protect the equipment. Its design gives it a time lag before it trips.

Prior to complete rewiring, my 1974 Ericson "as built" was a disaster (both 12VDC & 120VAC systems) waiting to happen. However it passed 2 surveys by a licensed surveyer without any suggestions to upgrade the electrical systems.

Bottomline is use both the proper size breakers & proper size/type fuses to provide their intended purpose and install them to present ABYC standards.

Jim
E35-2 Hull #380

[Edited by Jim Lewis on 02-11-2001 at 01:13 AM]
 
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