One of my first priorities when I took ownership of this boat was "keep it from burning down". That came right after "keep it from sinking". (Although, maybe it sinking while it was on fire wouldn't have been bad, but I digress...)
It's been said that the natural state of boat wiring is chaos and you have to work hard against that. There was lots of chaos. I'm documenting my journey in multiple steps. This is is the "before" and "idea" stage.
My main panel looked like this:
Behind the panel looked like this - yikes!
Lots of cobbled-together stuff. Wires tapped into the middle of other wires, wire nuts, just all kinds of bad things waiting to happen.
There was an old faithful battery charger:
The battery box looked like this (notice the bare wires pinched under the nut!)
First order of business was cleaning the gunk off the lugs and crimping some proper ring terminals on for the bilge pump:
And eventually, added a second battery to have a 'house' and 'start' battery.
Still not great, but that's where things sat for a couple of years as I worked on my engine wiring and instrument panel project and various other projects. In this time, I spent lots of time tracing where each wire went and fixing hazards as I discovered them. Also, this gave me time to think about what features I wanted in my system. I'm a lake sailor, but I do like to modernize where it makes sense, especially for safety improvements.
So, after much thought here's the design I came up with for the overall system diagram. I also developed some panel layouts and other diagrams I'll document in later posts. I envisioned a fold-down panel and drew some inspiration from DaveE26 who built a nice fold-down panel with structured wiring. Many others have this style of panel, but not any other E26-2 that I've found.
It's been said that the natural state of boat wiring is chaos and you have to work hard against that. There was lots of chaos. I'm documenting my journey in multiple steps. This is is the "before" and "idea" stage.
My main panel looked like this:
Behind the panel looked like this - yikes!
Lots of cobbled-together stuff. Wires tapped into the middle of other wires, wire nuts, just all kinds of bad things waiting to happen.
There was an old faithful battery charger:
The battery box looked like this (notice the bare wires pinched under the nut!)
First order of business was cleaning the gunk off the lugs and crimping some proper ring terminals on for the bilge pump:
And eventually, added a second battery to have a 'house' and 'start' battery.
Still not great, but that's where things sat for a couple of years as I worked on my engine wiring and instrument panel project and various other projects. In this time, I spent lots of time tracing where each wire went and fixing hazards as I discovered them. Also, this gave me time to think about what features I wanted in my system. I'm a lake sailor, but I do like to modernize where it makes sense, especially for safety improvements.
So, after much thought here's the design I came up with for the overall system diagram. I also developed some panel layouts and other diagrams I'll document in later posts. I envisioned a fold-down panel and drew some inspiration from DaveE26 who built a nice fold-down panel with structured wiring. Many others have this style of panel, but not any other E26-2 that I've found.
