Electrical Upgrades

[IpswichGrady]

Oh... so then put the breaker after the switch like I originally had it in my design. Just put it close to the switch as that would be the power source to my house accessories.

I will not add a breaker on the engine side.

I appreciate both of you and your help. I have been around boats all my life and have owned quite a few. Please do not think that I am totally green in the boating realm. I simply have not tackled this extensive of an electrical project on a boat this large. Im asking a lot of questions so that it is done right the first time, so that the boat is safe for me and my family. Trust me I am learning a ton and am very grateful!

So.. here is what I have. I'll sit back and see if there are any recommendations. Actually, I'll take a break and try and do some actual work!

 

[DennisG01]

HEY! I think you've got it! Skunk, double check me, but I'm not seeing anything wrong with that.

"Please do not think that I am totally green in the boating realm. I simply have not tackled this extensive of an electrical project on a boat this large."

No worries. We all have to start somewhere, right? And, truth be told, electrical schematics blows a lot of people away. It takes time to understand them.

Here... check this out. This is for a boat similar to my last one - a Sea Ray Sundancer. This is just part of one page (there are about a dozen)... and this STILL is not the most complicated out there!

 

[IpswichGrady]

hey, couple of off topic questions for you 2 guys....

1st.. is one of you 2 the seller of that bracket that I have an agreement with? That Grady bracket will go on the back of my brand new transom (once the weather warms up here in Boston and I can get back to work on it!)

2nd... Skunk... you live in Manasquan NJ? I grew up near Philly and summered in Beach Haven, NJ back in the 60's. We belonged to the Little Egg Harbor Yacht Club (LEHYC) where I sailed sneakboxes as a kid (my sister was better... she has the silver to prove it).

small gaff rigged duck hunting sailboat

3rd... Dennis... I actually lived in Ambler PA which is straight down 309 from you before moving to Boston in '73

Small world!

 

[SkunkBoat]

looks pretty good. You drew the returns for the bilge pumps tied together before returning to the aft negative bus.
You will probably return the aft bilge to that bus and the fwd bilge to the fwd negative bus. Saves wire and makes tracing thing easier later.

Just thinking out loud... do either the fuse block and the breaker switch panel have a pos & neg bus?
I'm thinking, depending on the fuse block you have, you could omit those separate bus bars, run the 8g wire to the fuse block and feed the breaker switches from there.

On my V20 I did that. I like the Blue Seas blade type (ATO) fuse blocks with built in neg bus.

 

[SkunkBoat]

I grew up near Philly and summered in Beach Haven, NJ back in the 60's. We belonged to the Little Egg Harbor Yacht Club (LEHYC) where I sailed sneakboxes as a kid (my sister was better... she has the silver to prove it).

:hmm So you're an Iggles Fan????

I was born in Philly, moved to Jersey in middle school. Hung out in Seaside Heights and Point Pleasant Beach not LBI. I did take the V20 down to Beach Haven last summer. Might do that with the Grady this year.

 

[IpswichGrady]

I have a Pittsburgh PA birth certificate, lived in Philly but have lived in Boston for 45 years... I’d say I am a Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins fan. Should be a good game!

 

[DennisG01]

No, I am not selling a bracket.

Ambler - sure! Pretty close!

Ipswich is a nice little town - drove through once, albeit quickly. Any chance you know Henry Boyd? He has a 28' Sea Ray Sundancer (cruiser) on one of the moorings (I believe a town mooring, but not sure). The boat's name is Ciao Bella.

 

[IpswichGrady]

Yes I know Henry well. Can picture his boat sitting on his mooring. Moorings are rare to have in Ipswich especially where his is in the river. The wait list is 10yrs + at this point.

 

[DennisG01]

Next time you see him, tell him Dennis says hi ("Lazy Daze" from the Club Sea Ray forum). VERY nice guy. I have yet to have the pleasure of actually meeting him in person, but have emailed/forumed/phoned numerous times about various things. He even made me a GORGEOUS table for my Sea Ray. He's one of the good guys!

 

[dstarok]

Take a look at this...
http://www.melody-in-blues.org/download ... ndbook.pdf

 

[IpswichGrady]

That looks good! I’ll have to print it up (at least look at it on a screen bigger than my phone). I am actually looking around right now to see how to wire up my switch panel.

 

[SkunkBoat]

Thats a pretty good book.

As for switch panels, my main recommendation is to avoid glass fuses (and their fuse holders) entirely.
A lot of switch panels come with a glass fuse holder for each switch. They suck. They break. Then you can't replace the fuse and you are screwed until you can bypass the broken fuseholder. And you can't read the size of the fuse easily.

Some of the gradys have breakers for each switch. These are nice to have as long as they are working properly and sized to the circiut that you currently have.

If each switch is fused or has a breaker, then you don't need a fuse panel/distribution panel.You can feed them from a bus.

On my V20, I bypassed all the glass fuse holders on the Blue Seas switch panel and fed each from a blade fuse (ATO) distribution panel.
I have the same blade type blue seas panel in the hardtop box on my Grady.

The blade type fuses are color coded and easy to identify and replace.
They make inline blade fuseholders for any separate circiut that runs back to the battery like Auto bilge pumps.
You want all fuses on the boat to be blade type.

 

[SkunkBoat]

another consideration with switches...
I like the lighted rocker switches.
I like to use DPDT on/off/on switches whenever possible to do two things with one switch.
For instance, I had my spreader lights and underwater light on an ON/OFF/ON rocker.
I wired it so one way it was just the underwater light, the other way it was both Spreaders AND underwater.
This saves you a position in your panel instead of a switch for each. It saves money too...smaller panel and fewer switches.
I did the same with courtesy and cabin lights.

The Nav/Anchor also. You want one position for the Anchor light (All Around white) and one for Running----Both Anchor (white) and Nav (Green&Red).

 

[IpswichGrady]

An update to my electrical board. I completed the actual board. I removed the positive bus bar and replaced it with a positive junction post. From there I fed the fuse box on the left which will feed my 8 switches at the helm. It will also feed the other fuse block on the right which will feed my VHF, electronics, Radio, etc. that will be turned on and off by the device's switch.

Each device that is fed through the switches will have the negative wire circle back to the negative buss bar shown. The other devices will all circle through the fuse block (+ and -)

The round hole in the board is where my 8g positive and negative feeds will enter from the stern and attach to the positive junction post and to the negative buss bar.

The switch is not one with circuit breakers. Rather each switch is fed from that fuse block. Someone told me or I read that while breakers are easy to switch back they are in fact a switch that can fail. Pretty easy to look at a fuse block like these and if something trips a circuit you can just pop in a new fuse. Also, in the end it was less expensive to purchase the 8 position switch and fuse block compared to a 8 position switch with breakers.

Everything is quality Blue Seas except the junction post which is actually a NAPA auto parts post... all stainless.. very nice quality actually at only $8

 

[DennisG01]

Looking good. The gathering of wires on the left fuse box and zip ties is a nice job. It's actually kinda fun doing that, isn't it?

Did the power post come with a shield? You absolutely need to put one on there - especially given how close it is to the ground bar - but it needs one no matter how far away it is. You might consider switching the locations of the right side fuse box and ground bar. I would also put a protective sheath over the 8g red cable since it will be right next to the 8g ground - especially as it comes through the hole. You don't want them to rub against each other. And, ease the edge of the hole so it's not sharp.

What are you putting on the bare connections (after attaching the connectors) to help keep corrosion away? Not sure if I mentioned this above, but there's any number of products that can work. But if you want the cat's meow, look at Tef-Gel. I started using that stuff about 10 years ago and it's nicer than standard di-electric grease as it isn't so "greasy" as seems to last longer, too. It's got more of a hard, waxy feeling once it dries.

 

[SkunkBoat]

looks nice.

couple thoughts...

will you be able to backlight the switch panel to illuminate the labels?
I had a smaller 4 switch version of that panel on my V20 and I backlit it with a cheap red LED from an auto parts store. you might need 2 LEDs. feed it from your white All-around.

those panels are nice but each switch can only do one ON/OFF circiut.
You'll have to have a switch for Nav lights (red/green) and a separate switch for the white All-Around ( because at anchor you need to turn of the red/green and leave on the white)
You might be able to replace a switch in the panel with an On/Off/On toggle switch which can be wired to have red/green/white in one on position and just white in the other on position.
Keep that in mind if you run out of switches.

For the horn, you could swap the On/off toggle with a Momentary On, it will spring back to off when released.

I agree that you might want to separate the + and - posts a little bit more and definitely shield the +post with a boot.
I am guilty of touching a wrench between posts on more that one occasion. :doh :-|

 

[IpswichGrady]

Thanks for the comments. Here is what I will do... and what I have in mind.

I have ordered some boots, will put one on that post

Don't really want to move the post. I guess I could flip flop the fuse block on the right with the negative buss bar. I'll think about it.

As for my switch panel, I don't have one of the switches assigned to the horn. I was thinking of adding a push button somewhere else

And finally, my switches are labeled as follows:

• Bilge Pump
• NAV Lights
• Spreader Lights
• Anchor Light
• Wiper
• Instruments
• Washdown
• Accessory

Anchor and NAV are separate. No need to have an "on,off,on"

The switch didn't come with labels for "deck lights" or "courtesy lights". Is it intended that the "cabin lights" be used for the deck? I don't have a hard top so I don't have a place to mount spreader lights. I figured I would use that switch.

And finally, I need to do some reading how to wire through my ignition. Is a simple relay used? I'll start looking around

 

[SkunkBoat]

Didn't you say you have 2 bilge pumps?

push button is good for Horn. Get the one with a red boot, it stands out...

Funny how those labels never have exactly what you need...

Not sure what you mean about ignition. Sometimes you can power dash/gauge/compass lights from the ignition switch(purple wire I think).
Its not necessary, you can power those from the Anchor/Nav switches.

You don't need to do a relay switch on your 8 ga feed. You are going to have a switch and a breaker.

 

[IpswichGrady]

Yes, 2 bilge pumps.... and the labels only included 1 bilge pump label! I'll have to probably purchase an extra sheet of labels if I want it to match.... damn nickle and dime expenses

Any insight how to wire through the ignition switch? A good idea? just wire in a relay? and if so, what goes through the key switch?

 

[SkunkBoat]

Any insight how to wire through the ignition switch? A good idea? just wire in a relay? and if so, what goes through the key switch?

as I said earlier, There is no point in powering your panels from the ignition "on" position. You will be able to shut off the supply power with your battery switch and/or your House breaker.

Its way better to have full use of your panels even if the key is in the off position. You would want all that stuff to keep working if you had to turn the key off and on.

Often, the original wiring has the gauge illumination connected to the keyed On position. I think yamaha uses yellow wire for switched +12V. Yours may differ.
They would have daisy chained that from gauge to gauge. There is no need for a relay. Run the "on" wire from the switch to a fuse and then to the gauges

Again, I would just power your gauge illumination from the Anchor or Nav circiut.