This video looks at the electrical installation in this relatively low-tech, liveaboard, cruising sailboat. Conduit, wire size and type, circuits, loads, cable routing, connectors, traceability, etc.

This is the story of the building of a Jay Benford designed, 31.8ft, junk schooner-rigged cruising sailboat. The videos are a week-by-week record of the build as it progresses and aim to show as much detail as possible of the various aspects of the build.

These videos take a lot of time and effort to make, in what is already a time-intensive project. Your support in watching, subscribing and sharing these videos is very much appreciated. You make a real difference!!

Closed Captions (CC):
oh

it's vitapatcha we are building a

cruising sailboat as you

may well know this week it's been all

about

electrics all about electrics this week

i've done very little else

so i think this is probably the ideal

week

to talk to you a bit about the electrics

the way i've done it in this boat um

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see it all in black and white

and painted all so recently

i sit and wonder what we seem to know

how we sure

soon we'll see what it's about

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is

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and the state of play now as we stand

here this evening

is that the main distribution the main

looms or distribution network or

whatever you want to call it

uh in as one or two wires missing but

it's basically

in so as i say i'm going to talk you

through the system i think

and it starts in here

with a rather large battery box

you can see in there and the intention

is to get the biggest battery in there

that i can

possibly fit almost certainly an agm

ned acid battery going in there i

anticipate 200 amp hours something like

that

now i should say that in my opinion at

least

this is this is a very very simple

electrical system i've tried to keep it

as low

takers as i can whilst i was you know

having a functioning comfortable-ish

electrical system so as i say 200 power

agm lead acid battery in there and then

of course it goes from there

up to if you just turn around they carry

up to the switch panel here

and um you know it's a very old switch

panel

i've had it it's been in my possession

for i don't know over 25 years of dsa

but

it functions you know toggle switches

for the various

um things that are running various loads

that are running

off of there and each each load is fused

10 amp views on each load although you

can put smaller fuses in there

obviously good so

let's start with the basics so

shore power comes in at the aft end of

the boat that's probably not a surprise

and from there it runs through a fuse

box and

into the electrical bay where this

victron

energy battery charger will be installed

and through to this switch and

power socket that's the main system

very very simple um from the batteries

the 12 volt batteries we're running

through to the switch panel i've said

that already

i've run my cables in in conduit this is

basic cheap ish conduit that you can buy

at any you know

diy supermarket whatever you used to

call them

comes in different sizes a couple of

different sizes

beauty of this stuff is it's flexible i

clip it up with hose clips like that

these these clips

these p clips just clips up out of the

way

runs through beautifully just have to

put a hole through various bulkheads and

run it through

the first thing i want to say is is that

conduit

if you're putting a new installation in

yourself go for bigger conduit than you

think you're going to need

that's something i've learned on this

build

bigger conduit is better this makes the

job a lot easier i can tell you

so first tip big hundred then

in the conduit obviously i'm running

wires i pulled the wires through with

this this flexi

metal thing poke it through there attach

the wires again put it back through

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yes

several people have told me that uh

you can get wire nice and easily through

conduit by

either a little bit of light fishing

line but a bit of tissue tied to the end

of it and then blowing it through with

compressed air or

sucking it through with a vacuum cleaner

i'm sure it will work wonderfully

i've used that flexible thing so

wireless country

the most important thing for a boat

electrical system

is that you in my opinion

is that your wires need to be big enough

so you need to know what sort of load

you're putting on the various circuits

and i think

each of those switches each of those

fuses is a separate circuit you need to

know what

load in terms of amps you've got on that

circuit

and make sure your wires are big enough

i have used

16 awg all the way through

because theoretically it's not quite

that

straightforward but keep it simple 16 hr

wg

will carry about 20 amps

none of my circuits get anywhere near

that and i say 10 amp fuses

i'm happy with 16 awg i could have used

lighter wire no doubt

but um and it would have been cheaper

and

less weight but

it needs to be robust as well i think

robustness is a

major consideration in cruising

sailboats so i've used 16

awg wire off all the way through

and that's splashed out in the past i've

worked

a while with any old wire i can get hold

of stranded right it needs to be

stranded

and not solid core because stranded is

is

can flex and doesn't suffer from metal

fatigue nearly as much

so stranded wire is important but other

than that you can use anything

and i wired our previous boat our wire

with with that

speaker cable stuffing with the

transparent

insulation on it and it worked fine

but this time i've done it properly i've

bought

tins copper stranded wire with with

silicon

insulation you know not the cheapest

i've got some here

there we go it's lovely and flexible

you can't really see it but it's tinned

copper in the middle beautiful stuff

but if you're doing something like that

the next consideration is

ideally you use a different color for

each circuit so that it's easy to trace

but that involves you buying an awful

lot of

wire different spools of wire so

basically i've used

red and black or this one's actually

claims to be brown i've used red brown

black everywhere now i say 16 awg

everywhere but that's not true

the all of the loads running from the

switches

are running on 16 awg but obviously the

the supply from the batteries up to the

switch panel needs to be bigger because

all of the load is going on that and

i've used 10 awg for that

so i've got two 10 awg cables running up

to the panel

16 running out

and i've tried to keep it relatively

tidy

um in a manner that i know what's going

on there so we've got a negative bus

bar with various loads going out and

i've labeled everything

so it's easy for me to trace despite the

fact it's all the same color red or

black

i know the system i can trace it easily

so there's my system in there so from

the

from the power we run

in conduit up behind these seats

at some terminal blocks that are tapped

up in here out of the way

run forwards to the four cabin lights

through that bulkhead

and another conduit runs under this seat

the top end of this seat through to that

side some more terminal blocks

i'll say about the conduit and all wire

runs i've tried to keep them

up so nothing is in the bilge i've tried

to keep them as high as possible

otherwise as high as reasonably possible

terminal block up in here another

conduit running

aft for the port side supplies

the further around you get the less

wider in the conduit

running aft from the switch panel i've

got this channel that i

i built in there that white still needs

to be tied up but

channel running through so no conduit

well no

no conduit there wires running in the

channel through

to the electrics bay there and through

into the engine room

and a piece of conduit again so in the

end the engine room actually gets

supplied from

from the starboard side going aft and

the port side going after it's got

got electrical supply from both sides so

if you think about the various

loads that we've got the switches

basically serve to remind me

these labels are still the old labels

and i should possibly put new ones on

but

those we've got accessories at the

moment only supplies that

car radio this is actually a marinized

car radio

instruments supplies at the moment the

plotter

but will also supply the um

autopilot blower

is the fan for the stove almost no draw

on that

this one which is unlabeled will be the

fan for the

toilet cabin lights

self-explanatory the cabinet light

system all cabin lights are

led there are 13 cabin lights in total

all led all roughly speaking um

2.5 watts so about a quarter of an amp

a little bit less um so if even if

they're all on we're drawing about four

amps

if all are switched on at the same time

which is an unlikely scenario

so carry light circuit never lights

self-explanatory

bilge pump then we will have a steaming

light

and this one will probably be for the

vhf

vhf it's possible that i end up

replacing this

panel with a bigger one with a couple

more switches vhf to come in

ais transducers to come in probably want

their own switches

so let's say we've got terminal blocks

in hidden away in various places

they're impossible to film i can't show

you them but basically i'm using these

these

is that focused a lot yeah using these

terminals with screws through on the

terminal blocks

and i'm connecting those on yeah

it's not rocket sciences but very old

school let's say this so

just stripping the insulation off

there's the tinned solar wire the tint

stranded wire got these little

terminals

and i'm soldering them on i'm using heat

shrink i'm crimping the terminal onto

the onto the wire and soldering it old

school soldering

now i know there are all these new

fangled things that you with that

it all built in with the heat shrink and

the solder built in you just put a

cigarette lighter under it or something

and i've tried them and i prefer old

school i'll be honest with you

i prefer old-school soldering iron

solder on there obviously with that with

a

electrical or electronic solder so the

flux is not corrosive flux

um and heat shrink it that way i know

that it's soldered well

you know i can inspect it i can see it

i'm happy that it's soldered well

i put the heat shrink on and i know it's

a good job

that's the way i've done it throughout

i've got one

little issue and that is i've tried to

wear the

wirings visible i've tried to run it in

this in this

i bought this cloth stuff conduity stuff

and i hate it i'll be honest with you so

i've just been out and bought

brought some cool ground wood pretty

heavy duty but i'll play it up

and i'm cutting links i can't really

show you kind of be cutting links of

that to

tuck my wiring behind that is horrible

but i haven't got much visible wire so

i haven't got many bits to hide and we

should try to do it a bit nicer than

that

and that's it my boat electrics very

very simple

no fridge you will have noticed um i

shall practice food

storage um simple electrical system i

believe

and that's why i've done it in here and

it's nearly finished obviously i've got

you know when the bits and bobs come in

and need to be connected up

i've now got the distribution network in

so i only need to do a bit of localized

connecting up

for example the plopper is now connected

and working

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wow isn't that beautiful

i agree to that it's not

receiving any gps in the shed or that's

not quite true but it's got very poor

gps reception in the shed

but working looks beautiful i think

you'll agree

that's it for this week the boat

electrical system

i hope that's the some values of some of

you uh specialist video this week

obviously

thanks for watching give us a thumbs up

hit that subscribe button

we'll get over to the sv tapatio

merchandise the shop

t-shirts challenge coins on the website

see you next time bye

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[Applause]

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is

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my

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is

that's the bottle here's the pump there

in the line that goes down into that

horrendous filter level's not going down

very quick is it

oh some horrible stinky stuff huh

you