Kaholee Refit | September 8, 2007

After a day away from this project to handle several other things, I really wanted to get to work on as many of the final electrical connections as I could.  While I still had some wiring remaining--battery cables, windlass, and the electronics--there were many connections that I could make now.

With a number of cabin lights and fans that I wanted to run to one circuit, I established a positive distribution buss on the back panel, and terminated the hot leads for 10 lighting fixtures and fans here.  A single lead off one of the main studs would eventually lead to the proper circuit breaker on the main panel.

I also terminated all the ground wires on two negative distribution buss bars that I installed.  As with all the terminations, I first labeled each wire end with little labels protected with clear heat shrink, and then made the final connections with heat shrink ring terminals for the #10 screws on the buss bars.

Anticipating a present and future need for a few appliances that might require an "always on" connection, I installed a dedicated buss bar that, with an eventual connection to the hot side of the battery switch, would become energized regardless of the position of the battery switch--this for things like automatic bilge pumps and, perhaps, memory leads for the sound system or other such appliance.


    


With this wiring done for now, it was time to temporarily install the electrical control panels and start to determine how to lead the various wires out to the panels as required.  I designed the panel so that the large section, containing the AC and DC distribution panels, would swing out on a piano hinge to one side for access to most of the electrical wiring behind.  For more intense service, the smaller section of the panel, once installed permanently, could be unscrewed and laid down to access the wiring behind.

With the owner arriving later in the evening for a visit, I anticipated a shift in focus for the work during the next week, as we have a number of errands and tasks to take care of; therefore, I probably won't work much on the electrical system for a little while, but there should still be some progress in other areas. 


         


Finally, I don't think I posted any pictures of the cabin sole after I painted the edges.


    


Total Time on This Job Today:  6.5 hours

<Previous | Next>