breakers and fuses and amps oh my

[jbarros]

hey all,

I''m about to dive into rewiring my boat. It''s a reletivley simple process. 1 battery, 1 charger, running and masthead lights, vhf radio and I want to put a few cigarette lighter sockets in for powering laptop, cell phone, etc. Right now the boat doesnt have a fuse or breaker in it.

How do I figgure the load that the various devices are going to put on the system? I think the single battery will be sufficient, but I want to have independent circut breakers for each system (lights, radio, sockets) but dont know how big the breakers should be.

Can anyone suggest any good books or other resources (web sites, etc) on the subject?

Thanks.

-- James

I think that Nigel Calder has most of what you would be looking for in his book on electrical systems.

Jeff

[fer@fer]

Hi James,

I will confess that never expect a Jeff''s so short answer. Probably he is running out of time. As we get older, is less time available.

But let me also confess that when reading a question in the board, I do also ask myself wether James is willing to chat a little bit, or just find the right way to look the answer to his question. So, as Jeff did, instead of giving my oppinion, I''ll send you to other qualyfied ones.

In addition to Calder''s books, which I highly recommend having in your boat''s library, you can check these two articles here at Sailnet as follows

http://www.sailnet.com/collections/articles/index.cfm?articleid=jeffre002

http://www.sailnet.com/collections/articles/index.cfm?articleid=jeffre005

You may also willing to type "electric" in Sailnet''s search, and thousand of articles related to your job will appear.

Regards

Fernando

[KenD]

Actually you might try to calulate the load (amount of power that you anticipate you are going to use) and then you could use ohm''s law which will tell you the size battery you need the wattage and amps will let you calculate the wire size etc.etc.

[windship]

What KenD said and go even larger... and even larger if the runs go through the engine room.Don''t do it without knowing whats going on.Do lots of research before embarking and use only tinned wire.
By the way, Blue Sea Systems has nice stuff.I just replaced my boats original six position twelve volt panel with twenty one pos twelve volt, installed an A/C pannel and installed a gas pannel all from Blue Seas and I am quite pleased with the results
Good luck.

Dennis

[captbuy]

....and don''t forget corrosion protection. I use Boeshield T9 on all connections and at least 2 coats of liquid electrical tape in wet areas.

[windship]

Crimp,Solder and Clear Adhisive shrink tubing.

Dennis