Re: Real world Wiring
Let me make a couple of suggestions for you as well.<br /><br />Before you begin take a large piece of paper and draw an outline of a hull on it. Mark on it every single electrical device on your boat, the lights, the pumps, the electronics, everything and then draw your own schematic. Do it in colored pencils and make sure the color you draw matches the wire color you will be using. Make insets for your buss bar(s) and for your fuse or circuit breaker panel(s). Make rough estimates as to the length of the wire runs and err on the side of long estimates and then use those numbers to determine your wire sizes and fuse/breaker requirements. Do all of this first, before you so much as buy your first package of connectors. Make sure you follow your schematic when you do the actual wireing and more importantly make sure you modify your drawing to agree with what you actually install while you are out there doing the work. Sometimes things have to change.<br /><br />After you've finished the job go back and redraw your schematic to reflect what was actually installed and where the wires actually ran. Stash the schematic away somewhere safe.<br /><br />Some folks solder, some folks crimp, some folks do both. I do both, you ask around and read a lot and decide for yourself how you want to make connections, but in either case you're going to need shrink fit in several sizes.<br /><br />Blue Seas is a very good source for buss bars, fuse boxes, circuit breaker panels, switches, tools, and supplies. Use Anchor for your wire. <br /><br />Here is the most important thing I can tell you about wireing in general: Support the runs of wire so that at no point is the weight of the wire supported by a connector. I normally tie my wires down at least every foot.<br /><br />Sometimes it makes a lot of sense to plan some modularity into the wiring system. By that I simply mean put plugs in the system here and there so if you need to remove devices it is easy. Sometimes you can achieve this using either Molex or those weather-proof GM style (if you guys who wire cars or boats haven't seen these things take a look
http://www.quickcar.net/ign_sys/terminals.html )plugs. An example of what I mean is that you can put a plug in the system so that all the wires that feed and exit from a fuse panel go to a plug with the other end feeding the boat. That makes it a very fast and much easier job to replace the fuse panel if the need should arise.<br /><br />Thom
