Electrical Projects

Electrical projects 

The electrical projects has been more work, taken longer and cost more (it ALWAYS does on a boat),  than expected,  but almost finished.
Not knowing that much about electrical and doing the work myself has been a challenge. I did hire a marine electrician to come to the boat 3 times to look at where I am and give me advice. He was a big help in redesigning the system and giving good advice. If you're in the S.F. bay area his name is Jeff Van Klompenburg <jeffyachtmaintenance@gmail.com>.

We have removed and replaced the old car type charger, old batteries, 60% of old wiring.
I have replaced all lighting with LED lights, inside and out.
Then we added 4 solar panels and three battery chargers. Each set of panels have their own charger and I have a also installed 60 amp. Xantrex Truecharge battery charger and we have a 2000 watt honda generator. So we have a back-up for our back-up charger. The redundancy lets me sleep better.
The old battery bank was a single bank of 4 batteries. I have replaced them with 440 amp-hour bank and added a starter battery and separated it from the house bank, with a different battery selector. I do have the ability to connect the two banks if needed. This way if the house bank or the start bank goes dead, I can still start the engine in an emergency. The starting battery is charged with a battery combiner. It is designed to monitor, and charge, the starter battery using a portions of the current that is charging the house bank.
I also have installed new AC and DC breaker panels, radio and speaker, DC socket charger with USB port chargers, and built walls and cabinets to hold it all.
The plan was to install a marine refrigerator in the existing ice box. But after looking at the time and cost involved to replace the insulation and install the refrigerator unit, we decided on a stand alone unit. At least for now. The best in the market seems to be the Engel brand but the size we need is over $1500. So we went with the Edgestar which is 1/3 the cost for a unit 20% larger. I fear this may come back to bite me, but so far the unit is working great and the power draw seems light. But, we'll see when we are out in the real world of cruising. I feel I will need to add insulation to this unit. My plan is to add some to the inside and outside, in hopes to keep the power consumption low.
As of 9/26/13, I still need to find out why the running lights aren't always working, replace the stern light and replace anchor light before we sail away from S.F. When we are out I still need to replace more old wires throughout and a host of other small re-wire projects.
Pictures to follow.