fuse panel protection opinion...

[JSGOLD]

I have been getting our old 76' Starcraft ready for our first outing of the year this week and while checking it out I had some issues with the old wiring. The wiring is old, wrong colors, and generally poorly protected to non protected circuits. I had hoped to rewire it over the winter as I knew the previous owner had butchered it up to get by, but was unable to deal with it until now. I have everything pretty well planned out and have a lot of reading materials to guide me but one thing I have not pinned down yet. I am adding a 10 circuit panel, rated 100 amps. My current usage is small...a bilge pump, lights, cigarette lighter, horn, and depth finder. I will be adding a cd/player-radio and possibly a hand controlled floodlight later. After that?? My question is would you bother with installing a circuit breaker to protect the panel, and what amperage? My first thought is to go ahead and run cable suitable for 100 amps and use a 100 amp breaker...but that may be overkill on this boat. It is a 16' boat, deep V.

 

[beagleboy]

Re: fuse panel protection opinion...

Do an inventory of your power consumption, doubt you'll need 100 amps and doubt your charge system is anywhere near 100 amps. Circuit breaker NO for the panel.

 

[JSGOLD]

Re: fuse panel protection opinion...

LOL, I know a lot about house electrical but amazing how a boat can confuse the heck out of me. I have seen different opinions on the breaker for the panel and while I can understand prorecting the circuit it seems to me that even with a resetable breaker you could have issues on the water. My power consumption is small....at this time. Unknown what it would be down the road but I am betting 30 amps or so.(excl;uding the trolling motor which has it's own circuit and battery). Guess I will just run some 8 gauge to the panel and be done with it. Can always change later if need be. I just need this rat's nest cleaned up. Anything is better that what I have now.....

follow up, the motor is a 76' Evinrude 55hp. rated at 6 amps on the generator.

 

[beagleboy]

Re: fuse panel protection opinion...

House wiring 110v and marine/automotive 12v DC are two different animals. Why no main breaker is if it pops it will shut everything down. You'll be floating around with no tunes or nav lights no everything else.

 

[LippCJ7]

Re: fuse panel protection opinion...

yes it is overkill to run a 100 amp breaker and thats exactly what I did. there is no wire unprotected in my boat except the wire that goes directly to my starter.

Yes I would fuse the panel but you need to take inventory of what is being powered before we can give a value

 

[ajgraz]

Re: fuse panel protection opinion...

yes it is overkill to run a 100 amp breaker and thats exactly what I did. there is no wire unprotected in my boat except the wire that goes directly to my starter.

Yes I would fuse the panel but you need to take inventory of what is being powered before we can give a value

Totally agreed. You gotta protect that mains wire. Probably not going to need to be more than 40 amps or so fuse on your rig, as said you must inventory your amp draws.

 

[JSGOLD]

Re: fuse panel protection opinion...

The problem is trying to figure what else I may add later....the draw now is very minimal. Will do some more checking to see if I can get a maximum possible draw. Under normal circumstances now I doubt I use more than a few amps. Guess I can check the bulbs, bilge motor draw, and see what the lighter outlet might pull with a plug in light, as well as a radio/cd player to get some idea. I see though there is a difference of opinion here too as to whether to protect the panel feed wiring.......:facepalm:
Just for the record....what do the boat companies do for new boats this size??? I have no idea what was on this boat when it was new as it has been "worked on" a lot over the years.

 

[JSGOLD]

Re: fuse panel protection opinion...

I see some similar threads on this subject so I guess this is a common thing. What the previous owner did was basically install a positive buss under the drivers area and only one of these were fused. He had a total of four separate cables run to the battery positive terminal, one of which was fused.....four grounds to the negative side, and at least three splices into one of those. Some of the blasted wires ran nowhere in the front and the wires are old. I ripped out some of the crap and cleaned it up some for this weekend. I have to install a temporary circuit for my bilge pump until I get back...however I have inline fuse holders I can add. Will see what the pump is rated and size the fuse slightly above it. Like I said...anything is an improvement over what I found.....

 

[LippCJ7]

Re: fuse panel protection opinion...

Everything you have suggested so far can be run on a simple 10 circuit fuse block available right here on iboats, if you want to run an AMP for your stereo then you will need some additional supply but I don't think your boat has enough supply to push an amp anyway.

Here is a link for a fuse block with grounding you could use right here on iboats http://www.iboats.com/Seachoice-ATO...962964921--**********.132831022--view_id.2901 The lighter/accy plug I normally fuse at 15 amps, fuse everything, you can use the fuseblock for everything I can think you would ever want to add except a decent sized AMP for your stereo, I would probably run 8 gauge to both the positive and ground point on the fuse block to your battery or battery switch and fuse the Positive supply appropriately

The fuse block I provided a link to should provide you with plenty of room for expansion as well

 

[JSGOLD]

Re: fuse panel protection opinion...

That is a good idea on the Iboats unit, and the price looks good. I have some other things I have been needing from them anyway so I will get an order in soon. One question I guess is whether to protect the circuit...and what to use. I have two nice inline fuse holders for the larger automotive fuses (A3F series I think) that were given to me by the fuse rep here locally. They are rated up to 60 amps. I was going to use one for the trolling motor and could use the second one for the fuse panel circuit. I know circuit breakers are more expensive but are resetable.....any thoughts on that?

 

[ajgraz]

Re: fuse panel protection opinion...

My opinion: Use a fuse to protect main wire to fuseblock/switchpanel, and either a fuse or a breaker to protect the trolling motor and its wire.

Just always remember to make sure the wire's current carrying capacity is greater (by at least 10-15%, better 20-25%) than that of any fuse or breaker you put on it.

 

[JSGOLD]

Re: fuse panel protection opinion...

Will do...the old wires showed signs of stress and discolorization so plan to oversize the feeders a bit. Thanks!

 

[ssobol]

Re: fuse panel protection opinion...

In theory you also need to keep in mind the in-rush current of the worst case. Everything turned on and then main power applied (e.g. battery master switch to on). Depending on your equipment, it is possible for the in-rush current to be significantly higher than the continuous current (the reason for slo-blo fuses).

However, I can't think of equipment likely to be on a small boat that would have a significant start up current.

 

[Fed]

Re: fuse panel protection opinion...

Here's an alternative.
A 30A inline fuse at the battery, 30A cable up to the front & wire everything in that same 30A cable.
Fit switches in dash for any equipment that doesn't have it's own switch built in, in your case that would be 3... lights, bilge & horn.

 

[JSGOLD]

Re: fuse panel protection opinion...

Actually Fed the boat was actually wired like that at one time before...one of the other owners I guess had a 20 amp circuit wired like that. Somewhere along the line though a depth finder was added and a radio (no longer there) and the end result was splices galore and two circuits with no protection on top of everything else. After I cut away the excess I could see there was a small terminal block being used as a positive buss and the grounds were connected near the motor. Making things worse was the fact that instead on one long wire there were two instances where shorter wires were sliced to make onbe larger wire that was also spliced...so there might be 3-4 splices on a single circuit...especially the grounds. I would be tempted to use that option except I am concerned it would become a rats nest again. I plan to add a cd/radio for the wife and a remote light and possibly other stuff later so I will go ahead with the fuse box and clean up the wiring. Thanks to all of you folks for your input. This forum is by far the best one I have dealt with.