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I have one of our team members Eric who's a real electrician because believe I'm not an electrician I taught myself all of this believe it or not I'm an engineer but I didn't know any of this stuff at all through pain and disappointment I actually learned this stuff through necessity and just wanting to have a reliable electrical system and yeah I bought my boat on April Fool's Day by the way all right it's in 1990 I love her I know it's weird but I do really love her she's the one thing that makes me happier I literally go on that boat and I'm a different person it changes me I go from being so intense to the person I was when I was probably in high school and I didn't think about my future and I was living in the moment and yeah she's awesome which is amazing absolutely amazing but so what I meant to say is Eric's coming here today and he's gonna be joining us and he's gonna be showing you because Eric and a lot of my team members well most of them there this is what they do for a living like I've stopped making crimps for a living in 2010 and now I just talk and I come up with ideas and luckily my team members actually execute on those ideas and they make it happen so there's a really big difference between thinking about something and doing it and that's why electricians make a living because they're used to making things happen so first thing I want to emphasize when you're ever going to be working on your boat electrically and this is something that everyone should want to do I don't think it's too daunting to do electrical on your boat that being said you also want to respect it right respect is important give you an example I've come across many boats where the owner was very technical and engineer might have even been me an electrical engineer and it were complete disasters complete disasters and I've been on other boats where the owners an accountant has no technical background and the boat was perfect it doesn't matter what you did in school it doesn't matter what you do for a living doesn't matter all of those those met doesn't matter if you care about doing something properly there's enough information out there for you to do it right the challenge that we all face because we don't have enough time is to do bravado and MacGyver and just get it done that is our enemy and when you're gonna be working electrically don't ever feel rush because you only need one mistake with electrical and it's one mistake too many right it's a perfection business if you're not in the perfection business you can't be it's like being in software if you're writing software code and you don't care about details you're not gonna be a software coder it's just not going to compile it's being an accountant and not caring where the decimal points are you know oh it's a little bit to the left a little bit to the right of the same numbers I just moved the decimal I just it's just really order of magnitude in matters so electrical is about details so with that in mind we're gonna be talking about safety so it's very very important when you're attacking electrical to care about the details these are example of some one of them is actually was done by an optical engineer the one on the left I asked permission we never say his name we resembled by it said I even it wasn't really going in there really well he's giving me a lot of grief notice the white wire how bunched up it is he was trying to fit it in the plug and it wasn't going in so he didn't give up and it starts becoming stubby and he counted in and it went in slightly and he's like oh look my panels lit up I did it and then about a month later it stopped working he's lucky he could have had a fire because his neutrals off and he was running everything on his ground so his three wire system was down to two wire and he was using his AC grounding wire as his return path very very serious he noticed because the neutral polarity light on his panel was always lit but he thought he was unlucky - it was just a coincidence notice simple as a 12-volt cigarette lighter notice on the right hand side how the insulator right is actually not in between the metal it's on the side can you see that look at this right here you see how the the connector is actually not inside he actually put it in between the metal and the plastic because sometimes it's hard to see right you just want to get it done so the point I was talking about is there's a high standard you know you're not measured with how many things you get right in electrical you're measured how many things you get wrong it's unfair but that's what it is it doesn't matter that you got a thousand connections right you get one wrong that's one too many so you've got to be okay with that and that means that you have to believe and come to grips with the fact that perfection is the name of the game with marine electrical some of it means it might not work and you don't care but sometimes certain things on our boats are really required like for example a navigation light you might get stuck one day coming late into port and if your navigation light runs out you know not all the boats have radar and they might not see you that might be a life-and-death situation as simple as the light bulb not working life-and-death situation and it could go as bad as a wire dead short in a fire which is sort of extreme but it could be you lose your chartplotter because the seas are bumping and every time your boat is going up and down a face of a wave your chart plotter goes in and out that could happen that could also be pretty stressful so you really want to make sure that you don't create these unreliable situations on your boat because most of us find boating challenging enough as it is in a perfect boat it's pretty humbling to own a boat we all get it we all know what it is it doesn't matter how successful you're on land you're gonna find out that boating is a very humbling activity pastime and you don't need to make it worse than it needs to be you want to offset issues with corrosion and we're gonna be talking about insulation and how important that is and the other thing too that's very disconcerning and it's a reality is that a connection under no-load is probably gonna work but under load as soon as the actually the connection loads up and you start using that loan and it becomes a bigger load you might have crazy voltage drop I've had situations where you measure the voltage at the fridge is 12 and as soon as the fridge turns on it's 2 volts because it was a really bad crimp under no-load you can measure 12 volts no problem but as soon as there was a load the connection the voltage drop really down so that's a big issue and sometimes your breaker might not rip but you might have a fire that's why those short power plugs on the boats where is the number one cause of boat fires they've got a 30 amp breaker on the pedestal and a 30 amp breaker on the boat and your shower and your pedestal like wherever it is on your bow that 30 amp receptacle could literally catch on fire and your breaker on both the dock and the boat will never trip so breakers don't always trip the only trip for over current if you have too much resistance in a circuit that's not gonna trip the breaker so that's also reality right so don't think you know it's not because I have a seat belt in my car that I Drive like a maniac right I mean you see people that have kind of a seat belt you can have airbags you can still pre get pretty hurt so don't think because you have a breaker on your boat that you're like oh well it doesn't matter what I do I'm good because boats you can have an electrical fire without actually tripping a breaker this is I took this and this was unbelievable doing an electrical audit and I noticed the fuse block was really corroded and I actually touched the wire and the wire fell off and I was like I always ask do you mind if I take a picture this is too awesome I'll I have a folder of this stuff hundreds hundreds of bad pictures I call them great pictures so that's why it's really important when you're doing a marine connection that you think about you're on the water in a salt environment and salt is corrosive so you want to take the time to make sure that your insulation is down properly so what's the formula for success you want to make sure you have a good marine wire you've got proper terminals right that you're gonna have if the terminal doesn't come with heat shrink you actually have heat shrink with it maybe a lug you have the right tools and Eric is gonna show you the right technique because he knows what he's doing like I said I just do a lot of talking these are examples notice here this is crazy and I see this all the time by the way like you would not believe people are buying heat-shrink terminals and they're not applying heat to shrink the terminal and therefore they're thinking and that they're buying a $2 connector instead of a $0.10 connector and they think that it actually the name is descriptive it tells you what to do there's not very few things in life that come in the name the action that's required to make it useful heat shrink Terminal apply heat to shrink so that your terminal becomes protected I mean it's amazing but that's not enough I would say you cannot believe the number of terminals I find on boats that have heat shrink terminals that are 2 dollars a pop verse that are never applied heat and therefore it's as good as a 10 cents terminal because it's opened there and opened air means it's gonna corrode so if you and this is a big thing too if you're gonna do marine grade wiring you're gonna want to make sure that you use standardized colors that it's able to withstand vibration that it's easy to install it's not rigid like a coat hanger and that you're use the right cable for the right application if you're actually going outside for solar wiring we're actually using wiring that's made for outdoors so that it can handle the Sun and if we're inside a boat we're gonna use maybe wiring that's meant to go through an engine room alright so you got to make sure that do not buy the least expensive wine you can find and think you've got a deal you got the less expensive wire and it is what it is buy the rewiring is a very commodity based business okay it's not like someone's gonna find a deal out there there is no deals the least expensive stuff is the worst stuff the most expensive stuff is the best stuff it is what it is it's a very even playing field there are no deals to be found found and so don't cheap out and the reason I say that because the most valued thing we have its time and as a boat owner if you're a diligent there's a long list of things to do in your boat and the last thing you want to do is repeat what you did five years ago because you bought a wire that's not good quality right here's an example of someone that had a lot of persistence he was a true believer by the way this is a 20 amp breaker look at this wire this is a gauge eight wire this is a gauge ten 12 no looks notice the number of strands he put in there he put two strands cuz it didn't fit this is not definitely not a marine grade wiring you can see the strands are way too big he cut them all with pair of pliers so he did a good job he didn't leave them hanging he got two strands in bingo he was like I did it unrelated though unrelated his ice box conversion was not running properly and was cutting out very too soon related to a bad connection and that's how I saw that I was like well I found your problem somebody who installed your fridge put a gauge aid wire which was great to offset voltage drop awesome that's what I would have done didn't have the right terminal decided to come in MacGyver got it done put the wrong ring turn them all there and now under load when it's low voltage your fridge cuts out so welcome to the world of pain so the other thing - and what what I always emphasize is you know on our all or boats we should have a set of like on my boat I mean it's almost a mobile shop I have everything now okay of course it's too much and I have someone who's understanding who doesn't mind giving away a lot of drawers for a lot of tools but that being said we should have a bunch of different ring terminals on our boats of different sizes so that if you ever are going to do electrical work you open a little you know sort of like a bait and tackle right little plastic container with little separation like I literally have about 15 of those on my boat every fastener size every terminal size like everything because I never want to do something twice if I'm gonna do it I want to do it right and I want to use the right equipment but barring that extreme end where I am at having a small little tool kit on your boat with a bunch of marine connectors so that if you're gonna tackle it'll work when you're up in desolation sound or Gulf Islands and you're changing your water pump that you have the right butt connector or right wing to an actor is really really useful by the way a bad crimp over time causes heat this is a look at that connector that was a bad crimp look what happened I've seen on some wires even like inverter whine where the the insulation of the wire has melted like 2 3 4 inches back literally like a cigar all charred bad connection make sure that you eat shrink all your connections and eric is going to be showing that make sure that you use teacher ink that follows the code don't confuse and by black everything because some people are using black they'll wire their whole boat in black cable and they're gonna put either red or black heat shrink as a way to start reminding themselves that a black wire is actually positive if it's got red heat shrink on it there's no shortcuts people shouldn't take shortcuts in our shop we actually use literally red for positive yellow for a negative yellow heat shrink right we use the right heat shrink for the right application we're consistent because I want to make easy for the next person that comes on board to just not have to think it doesn't want to be context driven it just oh yeah red is red and yellow is DC negative other example of crazy bad crimps that I've seen by the way I've seen a boat once and I got a call is about four years ago Chris around this time owners from California came on board his boat started the heaters he was a surgeon from San Fran he had an act IVA 52 beautiful boat brand new boat I don't two million 1 million was awesome those ridiculous he calls me says you know Jeffy says I don't smell burning but my wife has got a really good sense of smell and she's smelling burning but I I don't see any fire and I was I remember I was in Cold Harbor and one of our staff Scott was actually in Cold Harbor as well I said oh my god you got a disconnect your short power cord he's like what I don't smell fire I'm like no no no you you you you got it do it like now so you went out disconnect show power cord we came on board he was drawing so much current through a short power cord to run the AC heaters on board to keep the boat warm right in January and there had been a bad crimped brand-new boat by the way but in the summer he's never drawing that much power right was he running there's nothing much to run in the wintertime first time this is a brand-new boat that crimp was the back crimp it actually melted and these are huge like 50 am breakers side by side on the panel and the panels like this big three of the breakers had melted in the back there was so much heat being generated the breakers never tripped there's never over current he kind of lost his boat there's only because his wife smelled it he can smell it and so you can actually have a bad crimp cause a breaker to melt at a breaker and yet you don't trip the breaker so if you're gonna tackle all of this what you want to do is you want to have the right tools right you don't want to have pair of pliers to try to do a crimp first thing you want to do is you're going to want to have some sort of wire stripper which is really important we only use the one on the left I've never used sort of the gadget one on the right Eric have you ever use that no I've only used the one on the left and then you're gonna want to have a good crimper I think we have both right you're gonna want it what's called a double crimp ratcheting tool and what's really nice about the one on the left is actually going to crimp on one side deeper and stronger than the other so the insulation is not going to be over crimped you're gonna have one side of their barrel that's going to be crimp really well which is the metal and then the insulation on the other one's gonna be little bit less or you can use this single crimp ratcheting tool for heat shrink terminals so that you don't break the insulation and Eric's got both so when we do work I only do heat shrink I figure the most important thing is time you never want to redo anything on a boat and my boats 1990 and I don't think she's old at all I met an owner yesterday he said he had a 2008 boat I'm like oh that's a brand new boat 10 year old boat is a brand new boat clearly its brand new like none of us buys a brand new boat maybe but that's beyond brand new 20 year old boat it's not an old boat 30 year old boats on an old boat 40 year old boats on an old boat a no boat is a 1938 Chris Craft and she's awesome and people love them they don't stop loving boats so a boat that's pre war is still out there so if you're doing something on your boat I've worked on boats out from 1918 and those are awesome boats I've never called the boat an old boat it's sort of like you know and so when you think about what people are willing to do on land and people say well it's good enough for a truck Jeff I'm like how many big rigs are you seeing that are from 1954 pushing loads on the roads big rig is five years ten years they all look new they got the miles they go some graveyard somewhere but our boats are lasting way more than five ten years so what's good for a truck isn't good for a boat because your boat is gonna last way more than five 10 years a 20 year old boat is not old so whatever you do on your boat do it well so this is basically the technique and eric is gonna be showing that and this is really probably the most important thing unless you're an absolute Pro and I don't know maybe Eric does always a pull test but there's no such thing as pulling on a connector to a cable especially if it's a gauge 10 or 12 I mean if it's a gauge 20 to a tiny little wire okay maybe but on a gauge 16 14 12 you gotta be willing to pull really hard make sure that that connection is good because remember practice makes perfect so you don't want to go I'm not gonna attach it and I'm just gonna hope it works because remember it might work under no-load but as soon you put a lot of current through that connection it might be a fire problem and that's what beautiful looks like this is not a Catalina we did a I think it was a 36 we wired a boat Catalina 36 simple easy clean you know by the way the easiest way to know if you've got problems with your electrical system without knowing anything and this is almost a universal truth if it's not beautiful it's probably a problem with it that's beautiful I've only ever seen one boat in my life that something was done perfectly aesthetically and there was a problem now how many boats have I been on where it looked like a mess and it was a mess all the time people that are take there's some seriously and I'm not talking about having a technical background it doesn't matter remember it doesn't matter what your technical background is anybody who takes the time to do something neatly and well is very detail-oriented and that skill translate to doing every single crimp perfectly the person who does a rats nests on your boat probably doesn't care about details and that means that some of the crimps are sort of like well I think it's sort of good enough so I can tell you without being an expert you can look at a panel you're gonna look at anything if it looks bad and most likely is if it looks great it looks pretty it's organized that means that someone took the care to take the time to do it properly so with that I'm going to pass the floor to Eric so here we have a 14 gauge wire it's gonna strip the end off I'll normally leave about a quarter inch to around a half inch half inch kind of generous I'll take our heap string connector I always want to make sure 14 to 16 gauge 14 gauge wire slip it on I always like to twist with the strands I noticed that there's a little bit of a area between the connector and the installation on the wire I believe that so I know that it's bottomed out on the end don't take our crimpers start at the very end of one side crimp it down and one more on this side to be safe and do the old pull test now I know it's good connection because I can't pull it out the next we're gonna heat shrink and I always like to twist around so you don't keep it on one side too long and you risk burning the insulation off okay pull test again and that is good connection