10 electrical questions

[polk county]

I have a 16ft boat with one 12v battery. I want to install the following: bow light, anchor light, bilge pump, 4 courtesy lights, depth finder and livewell light.

Here are my questions

What gauge wire do I use for all of this?

What size fuses do I use?

Do I need a master fuse?

Do I need a master switch?

The toggle switches have flat connectors: how do I secure wires to them?

How do I connect different gauges of wire? The depth finder has really thin leads.

Can the 4 led courtesy lights be wired in a series?

In this sequence where does the fuse box go? Battery to positive buss to switches to electronic devices to negative buss to battery.

Do I have to use those heavy gauge battery cables or can I use that same gauge wire as the rest of the system to connect to the battery?

I want to do this right help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[External Combustion]

Re: 10 electrical questions

The best way to answer your questions and have a handy reference while you do your work is to go to your local library and have them order in several books on boat maintenance. That way you will get several opinions as to the best methods and you will be able to compare.

Creating a boat electrician by just usung this thread will be difficult.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: 10 electrical questions

I have a 16ft boat with one 12v battery. I want to install the following: bow light, anchor light, bilge pump, 4 courtesy lights, depth finder and livewell light.

Here are my questions

What gauge wire do I use for all of this?

What size fuses do I use?

Do I need a master fuse?

Do I need a master switch?

The toggle switches have flat connectors: how do I secure wires to them?

How do I connect different gauges of wire? The depth finder has really thin leads.

Can the 4 led courtesy lights be wired in a series?

In this sequence where does the fuse box go? Battery to positive buss to switches to electronic devices to negative buss to battery.

Do I have to use those heavy gauge battery cables or can I use that same gauge wire as the rest of the system to connect to the battery?

I want to do this right help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

1) You can use 16 Awg wire.
2) 10 Amps per circuit will be adequate.
3) You need a master fuse/breaker form the battery to the fuse block if the fuse block is more than a foot or two from the battery.
4)I believe you should always have a master switch from your battery.
5)Buy flat blade connectors and a crimping tool.
6) You can either crimp different size wires together or solder and use shrink sleeve.
7) You never wire devices in series.
8) At the fuse block you should have a negative bus bar. All negative wires from the loads go to the bus bar. One large cable/wire goes from the bus bar back to the battery.
9) Not sure what you want to know. You size the wire to the loads.

 

[Silvertip]

Re: 10 electrical questions

Here is a basic boat wiring diagram. Eliminate what you don't use or need and retain what you do. You should "generally" not wire two different size wires in the same circuit.

http://forums.iboats.com/showthread.php?t=186986

 

[jtexas]

Re: 10 electrical questions

My fuse recommendations:
nav lights, 2 amps.
anchor light, 2 amps.
bilge pump, as recommended by the manufacturer, probably 3 amps.
depthfinder, 1 amp (unless owners manual says otherwise)
other lights, depends - say 2 amps x number of lights powered from a fuse.

Not all fuse boxes have integrated ground buss bars - don't worry, they are available separately. You can have one at the helm and one in the stern if you like, avoid extra runs of ground wire for bilge & anchor light.

Much debate surrounds crimp vs solder, but ABYC standard is either crimp or crimp plus solder, not solder alone, and wire nuts - never. myself, I like butt connectors, fast and easy.

If you get electrical noise on your sonar screen, you may have to run a separate wire for it all the way to the battery, in which case use an inline fuse holder.