Electrical Work

[PeterPalmieri]

So last year I installed a new panel and with a lot of help we rewired most of the DC side of the boat. The AC is currently out on it's own, I have a shore power inlet connected to a breaker box under the dinette with 3 outlets in the cabin.

I am not confident in my ability to run AC into the panel and wire in an inverter/charger. Is it something I'm better off hiring out or is it simpler than I am imagining?

[CamB25]

If you can wire DC, you can wire AC. If you are re-doing the AC side, consider updating to current standards. I learned today that ELCI (Equipment Leakage Current Interrupt) device is now ABYC required, in addition to GFCI branch circuits and general overload protection. Blue Seas makes panels with the ELCI and breakers included. Plug and play. Galvanic isolation might be nice, too...but hold onto your wallet when you check prices for all of the AC side items.

I canceled my shore power plans and I'm going with a simple 15 a battery charger input. I don't have need for a fridge or outlets, etc.

[CamB25]

Here's a Blue Seas panel with the ELCI built in:
https://www.bluesea.com/products/8101/E ... _Positions

[Bruce]

I still think ABYC is a scam money maker.

Being out of it for a while, I don't know whether insurance companies require ABYC standards as a requirement for repairs for proper coverage. An insurance guy could maybe chime in.
I'm all for ground fault in wet locations to a point, but given the way 31's and others came wired from the factory for AC, you would wonder how anyone ever survived stepping on the boats without being electrocuted if you listen to the talking heads.

The thing anyone has to remember about AC is don't take a bath with a plugged in toaster.

[PeterPalmieri]

Cam I've already installed a paneltronix AC/DC panel. The basics I obviously run the shore power plug into the panel and then out to the outlets, pretty simple stuff. Inserting an inverter, grounding, isolation, size wire etc is my concern.

[PeterPalmieri]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTiLfWcI0Nk

[CamB25]

Its analogous to your house wiring. Assuming you are 30 amps/125volt on the input, then 10 AWG wire (triplex) to the main breaker. Branch circuits are sized for loads 15 amps is 14AWG, 20amps is 12AWG. Insert a GFCI outlet in the first box of your outlet string(s). Think of the GREEN wire like your bare grounds in your house. They all tie back to the ground bar in the box. Green wires to ground bar (which should be electrically isolated from the neutral bar (white) on your panel), white wires to neutral, black to the branch circuit breaker(s). Run a separate green wire from the ground bar to your boats bonding system (engine block or other).

Inverters (DC to AC) are part of the DC side of the house, there must be a switch of some sort. Galvanic isolation prevents current from going in the wrong direction in case of a fault to ground (green). They are super expensive, probably because they have to handle large fault currents. Might be optional?

This might help:
https://shop.pkys.com/How-to-install-a- ... twQAvD_BwE

It's probably less expensive to hire out than the DC side...far fewer circuits and all circuits are basically the same thing repeated.

I'm thinking electrically these days because I'm building out my new shop. Be thankful you don't have to drive ground rods!

No toasters in the bathtub!
Cam

[CamB25]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTiLfWcI0Nk

Good diagram at 24:24

Good video. I obviously know nothing about inverters on boats!

[PeterPalmieri]

Cam, I watched that video and thought, maybe I should just skip the inverter/charger.

[bob lico]

are you willing to drive to Bluepoint, if ou are i will show you (hands on) with my boat and explain every detail as well as make a wiring diagram for you.monday or tuesday next week or just call me on cell.

[PeterPalmieri]

Thank Bob, a couple weeks I'll give you a call and come out. Last week of school next week and then vacation... Appreciate any tips I can pick up

[bob lico]

i will lay out the whole job with your input as to the A/C circuits needed as well as the all important ground isolated.really makes it easy when you can actually see the work rather then some dude in front of a class giving a speech and most going over a laymans head.

[neil]

Skip the inventor ,5kw northern lights and never look back

K

[Carl]

Skip the inventor ,5kw northern lights and never look back

K

Depends on what you want to do...for a fresh hot cup of coffee waking up on the hook, a pina colada at the beach or a bag of popcorn when fishing- - an inverter is more then adequate. Never have to try to squeeze around it, don;t have to worry about changing impellers, filters or shutting/opening valves.

AC, overnight fishing with lights blaring, cooking on an electric burner or microwave for long periods then a genset makes sense.

[bob lico]

good point carl but keep in mind there is a "happy medium" that is a 2.5kw generator along side port engine.ASSUMING every 31 Bertram would never put waste holding tank in cabin and they did do the right thing and place alongside starboard engine on shelf.

[PeterPalmieri]

Our needs are pretty simple, basically we have no problem with battery power on our day trips. And we don't have shore power at the dock. We are planning on long weekends at the beach where we will have access to shore power, it would be nice to be able charge the batteries at night after running our DC lights and pumps etc. It would also be nice to be able to make a pot of coffee or charge a cell phone or I pad, when not connected to shore power. Maybe we'd eventually get air conditioning, a fridge or use an electric grill pan in the future when connected to shore power; likely we never will. I don't see us needing those bigger AC options when we are not "camping" at the beach with shore power. No overnight canyon trips or extended on the hook trips, at least not while we are still running gas engines.

I could leave the the AC and DC separate as it is now. The advantage to an inverter/charger is mostly the charger on long weekends with some of the simple convenience of running a few simple AC items off the DC power.

[bob lico]

Gotcha and agree 100% i would never own a gas generator in your case a inverter is perfect.

[Carl]

Pete- if just charging I-Pads, Phones and the like you can get away with a simple plug in cigarette lighter type of inverter.

I installed a 1500watt peak/1200 watt inverter. More then adequate for my use. One appliance at a time...coffee pot, blender or microwave for quick heating, popcorn etc. It could go longer, but I opted to stay with a smaller deep cycle house battery. Longer or like when I want to give my AC fridge a good charge I start motor.

[Yannis]

Except for AC, all other uses (fridge, coffee machine, all lights, all i’s, all music, all fans, all everything), can be achieved with a solar panel. Just one. I agree with the cig lighter inverter, I have two, one for music and another full sine wave one for more delicate devices, like my teeth cleaning jet machine. I said it so many times that I know I become redundant and boring but this is the solution. For all cooking and grill and popcorn and steaks, shrimps, ...., you also need a gas stove and a gas water heater for extra hot showers.
Find a place where you can store a 1 or 2 or 5 liter gas tank. End of story! If you want to torture yourself then start pulling shore cables and the like. Or listening to the gen music.

[Tooeez]

Peter, when I was up north I did long weekends just like you describe, and ran my fridge all weekend, coffee pot in the morning and microwave to reheat small items off the inverter with no problem. I had shore power at the dock, so the fridge was cold when I started out, and didn't need a lot of juice to cool down. The fridge is a 4.2 cubic foot undercounter from a big box store; it only uses 20 watts, so that's not many amp hours out of the batteries even after 2 days. I have a 2,000 watt pure sine wave inverter, and 4 group 32 deep cycle batteries of about 110 amp hours each, and a 105 amp alternator on the port engine. The inverter runs off of 2 or 3 of the batteries in parallel (depending on how long I'm staying or how large the load). Works great for the uses you describe.
After a lot or trial and error I am now even able to run my a/c off the inverter (sort of). It's a small unit, so it struggles to cool the cabin in the daytime, but it does keep it comfortable enough for my first mate to take a break when we are fishing in the summer and there is not a breath of wind. I can run it as long as I want when we are trolling; it draws 55 amps, so about 3 hours is about as long as I would go without the engine running.
Inverters work best when they are close to the battery bank, and connected with the largest cables you can fit (I used 3/0; if I was doing it again I would go larger).
If you put a larger alternator on you might want to beef up the charging circuit wiring. My 28 came with 55 amp alternators; the charging wire was a #8 with a 45 amp cartridge fuse in the line before the battery switch. When I first put on the high capacity alternator (this was before the a/c was installed) all was well until I spent a weekend on the hook and drained the batteries somewhat. The new alternator was putting twice the current of the original setup into the system; after 20 minutes at cruising speed the fuse blew, but not before getting so hot the paper shell was smoldering, and the #8 wire was too hot to touch. I replaced the fuse with a 100 breaker, and the #8 wire with #2 from alternator to battery switch. Now, even with the 50+ amp load the wire is cool to the touch.

[Daniel-J]

I need some advice! There's a chance that when I buy my new boat there won't be any electronics in it, or say I want to remake it. I don't understand anything about electricity, so there are two options. 1) I hire a wizard to do the order; 2) I try to figure it out myself by trial and error.

I want to have as many sockets as possible, I plan to install a grill Pinty Portable Folding Charcoal Grill, one of these blenders and an ice fridge.

[Carl]

If you don't know anything about electrical I'd start by hiring someone that does...or find a person to walk you through checking you along the way.

For the BBQ/grill...Id be leary using one of those ON my boat, especially with charcoal. If you place it up high, you have to worry about it falling, being knocked over. If you go low...kicked, bumped knocked over...
The last thing you want on your deck is burning embers of charcoal.

They do make propane grills that mount to rails and holders that are placed so if they fall, they fall overboard.


https://www.amazon.com/Adjustable-Boat- ... 1544269496

[Yannis]

Daniel,

Hire a good electrician and try to understand what he does.
Discuss, and let him do the work.
I do not think it could become a goal of yours to start doing rewiring stuff and the like.

As for the plugs, forget it, I make a bucket of ice every single day for my drinks, and everybody else's, with a couple of solar panels. One day (very soon) all boats will be solar driven, just look around you, the later you ingest it the more it will cost you.

[Tony Meola]

Peter

Since you have a new panel, I believe you can put this in before the panel to get the ELCI protection. Like Bruce said, is it needed.


https://www.bluesea.com/products/1502/E ... Pole_Panel

[PeterPalmieri]

Thanks Tony, I haven't yet connected the shore power to the new panel. I'm going to hire someone to do that. Will be looking to install and inverter charger at the same time. Charlie recommended a couple guys I just haven't had time to get in touch.

[bob lico]

peter many years ago we had a customer in Brookville, NY. Dan is one of the dream team of NY attorneys (minc/rosenburg) AVE of the America`s NY so my son had a legal problem and i ask him to represent him "Bob i will do it for free or $ 800.00 per hour". i stood there and did not know what to say. OK do it for free and he blew the other attorneys out of the water in court. i learn a good lesson ( he call months later to cut speakers into an elegant French server in his office so i return huge favor. some times that what the best of the best tell his friend i can only work for free.trusted to work in FBI computer room,Suffolk and Nassau police with exposure to Interpol and other federal agencies. that`s why i will not take money for the most intricate of electrical work on a 31 Bertram.

[Carl]

If you don't do it for free, then often what you charge is what they believe your time or service is worth.

That gets tough when they want more work done...

[bob lico]

i agree with you Carl however i don`t have a lot of good years left in this world and have no regard for money. i have helped quite a few people in the past and never asked anything in return.People like you I helped because i can but anything government i charge more than a lawyer.years ago the county police built "an airplane in the basement" and than built a building around it over the years with computers technology a way of life. i agreed with the commissioner no police will pill any cars over for any reason Sunday night between 1 am and 4am because their patrol car computers would be shut down along with the main- frame computers in headquarters. that perp. going thru a red light at 2am could be in a stolen car or? My men finish the job in four hours after i engineered a procedure of prewiring the new UPS under the computer floor so the night of the changover the wiring was done already and i was by far the highbidder but other needed 12 hours.this type of attitude is why i am telling you about your installation. The Cummins engines on Phoenix had there first minor breakdown (belt tensioner started to squeak) i am changing both not just bearing two new units because there is a place on the internet for the ENTIRE CUMMINS 6BTA using factory new parts ,in this case DAYCO corp. made in USA for 1/2 the price of factory!.every single part delivered to your house in 48 hours.this is the first repair in 14 years of running these engines sometime 250mile round trips to canyon.

[Tony Meola]

Bob

Are you able to share the website with us Cummins guys?

[bob lico]

tony just goto Cummins marine 6BTA parts there are 6 different sites selling cummins marine at discounts.

[Tony Meola]

tony just goto Cummins marine 6BTA parts there are 6 different sites selling cummins marine at discounts.

Bob

Thank You