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Okay Jeff but this is my cal 39 it's a 40 year old boats and the 2 great sailing boat but the electrics are a problem right now so I'm looking forward to a lecture about it our thanks for having me on board appreciated we'll have a chance to look at it review what we see and then make some recommendations on what's the best next steps for you to tackle great boat is about 40 years old pretty common insert of set up there's good and there's bad there's a few good things right away that I'm seeing first of all you'll notice that on your boat I'm not seeing any weeknights on the batteries that's one of the things that's commonly seen. We'll buy batteries with wing nuts they think if they came with it it's probably a good idea but the reality is a boat has tons of vibration and you really don't want to have any wing nuts on about period I also noticing that actually you've got lock washers underneath pretty much everyone's of the knots which is great and so that's really good news so you've got really good connections and I'm seeing both on the house and also on the engine battery commonly specially group 30 ones or 2427 are gonna come with we're not some people are going to have a wing nuts on those so that's the first thing the next thing I'm seeing on this battery bank which I really like is that you've got for golf carts here wired in 12 all season Sears parallel jumpers and each pair of golf carts is worn series. And what you'll notice is the positive negatives are coming at opposite ends of the battery. And that's going to be essential to keep the batteries or have the batteries charge and discharge evenly so like that. 1 thing I'm seeing right at the battery level is this terminal on the positive is starting to be pretty stacked you look at the connections that you have and you actually have a 123 and 4 now this is misleading it looks like it's a connection but it's actually a temperature sensor and it's a temperature sensor that's connected to your store regulator and we'll talk about that later and realistically it doesn't need to be there it can actually be on ideally should be on a negative connection and so it could easily be brought back to this 1 here considering that there's not much on this connection points the other thing too that you'll notice on that connection which is really interesting is and this is essential is the stacking of terminals stacking of terminals is a little bit like a pyramid you put the larger blocks on the bottom and as you go higher and higher they're smaller and smaller blocks in this instance you can see there's a large gauge log and in between that you've got actually smaller gauges that are impeding the current from retreating a resistance between the battery and this larger cable which actually feeds your positive distribution for your whole vote. So I needed to hear to remedy would be to simply undo this connection and actually stack always from largest connector to small is connected so that the smaller connector like something like this which is a gauge 14 is not going to be carrying all the current that's going through this large gauge wire. The other thing I'm noticing is this connector here. Is actually you can tell is actually runs your external regulator and it's actually I'm fused so aptly essential that this has to be fused. So that's about it you can also notice that. The batteries are in a container which is great and I'm not seeing any signs of electrolytes actually on top of the battery so that tells us that the batteries have not been over charge or over field for recently. Next we're gonna look at what I'm looking at is I'm looking at this arrangement over here which is your negative distribution. First thing I see is that you've got what's called a shunt right over here. And and this shot is basically a single choke point and it's used to measure all the current going in and out of the battery bank. So the other venues all that I'm seeing right off the bat is I can tell that you don't have any negative connections that are done by passing this shot so all the current goes through this cable goes up comes out and then feeds a pot a negative distribution a common bus so that's the good news is that your battery monitor based on this set up looks like it's actually properly wired so you're gonna have an accurate reading on your battery monitor. Now on the negative distribution there's some hits there's some good stuff about stuff. I'm one of the concerns that I have is whenever I see a connection like this that doesn't have you trick that's for me something that I'd like to have like you can see some of them have them right he got he's drinking drinking drinking drinking but on this connection you don't and on this connection here you can see right over here you can notice though that the length of the heat shrink is too short. By he drink and they try to make a loss I see some owners that cut him throwing down to almost a quarter inch you know it I'm surprised some people don't make it only you know an eighth of an inch the point it's not a scene protector it's really to make sure that there's no more sure that's going to creep inside. Underneath the insulation and get to that wire because it might be on 10 and certainly when you look at a log like that and that that cable you get a sense that it's probably welding cable and if it's well then cable means it's on tend and so it's even more important especially when you have on 10 cable to make sure that like you hear on your neck on your positive you got to make sure that you've got about 2 inches of heat shrink to make sure that that connection is never going to get compromised and have risen corrosion which is going to cause resistance which is going to cobble to drop it that's actually the negative for the weight loss there you go yeah it's a pretty important because that been winless is or any type of motor starters win last the rosters all those devices don't die because they're badly manufactured or they're not quality products they'll generally die for one simple reason it's low voltage lack of voltage is what causes those devices to commonly fail. So and then the other thing too would be the stocking of terminals you know making take the time to make sure that the terminals are probably stack would be something I would recommend. And I'm also noticing that some of the wiring has actually not hatred terminals and then some of it has featuring terminals but he trick is not actually. There's no heat applied to heat shrink and so therefore that connection there's a huge ring terminal there but it's actually not currently in use right it's acting as a bot connector but the connection is not sealed so that would be something else that would be that I would recommend to rectify so that's on the negative distribution. On the positive distribution. For what we're seeing is we're seeing a lot of few circuits which I really like there's a lot of. What are called M. RBS and you can actually tell this is a marine read about reviews. And here's a dual MRB F. being used to fuse holder and so you've got a lot of the DC distribution that's actually fuse properly to make sure that if ever there is a shortage that wire is actually not going to be a shorted but the fuse will blow so can you also notice there's a lot of spares which I like and that's really good and so you you want to make sure I can see there's already another connection here here we're talking about overall fusing and you'll notice there's a jumper caught my attention leaves here and it goes down and it goes right down into this fuse holder right here and it says H. 2 O. O. 40 apps you'll notice the fuses actually orange and you can see a lot of the blades off that fuse notice below the orange the orange itself the blades on the orange or maybe only about you along maybe half an inch and right now you can see that we're seeing at least a quarter of an inch or even more I have that blade so that means that blade contact is actually only partially done so it's really important that when you use those type of fuses you actually jam that fuse all the way down and what's confusing is the connections that are done need to be unscrewed with because they're actually. There's terminals underneath and those Phillips terminals need to be undone so you can jam the fuse all the way in and then you actually retired in both of both sides both of load side and the line fighter that fuse so that the fuse can actually be brought all the way down yeah that's why I jammed in cycling and I did that's right loosen them off yeah so that's common I'm yeah I think you you're noticing is over here we've got what's called an A. C. R. that's called an automatic combined a really. And you'll notice there's actually 3 connections on that there's one connection over here. There's another larger cable at that actually goes right over here and that's so basically allows that either house battery or the engine batteries are gonna be put in parallel whenever there's a charging voltage which is around 13.3 volts at a 12 a battery bank for what's interesting too is you'll notice is actually a fuse below that fan right here and that fuses actually really important because it's it right over here that is right there that fuse acts as a protection to make sure because it's actually on a grounding connection believe or not and that fuse acts as a way to make sure that the if ever there's a short on this circuit you're a C. R. is not going to have to be compromised because that wires only gauge 10 and that the positives are they look like probably one ought. I'm. So the positive distribution looks pretty good. I'm assuming there's a big welding cable here. At night the positive for the flu for the winless for the winless does too and he got a circuit breaker right over here. Yeah I I I it's conveniently located here but in an ideal scenario this length of cable here is probably too long to be unfused. You know if if this was the code and we were building as well we would have another fuse over here because that length of cable to be on fuses and such in an ideal world now I understand why you would do that because its term it's great if you're actually you know going somewhere and you want to make sure that your is winless doesn't accidentally get started or shorter while you're doing a voyage you would you know just tripped the breaker now suddenly you're when the says is an energized so it's in a convenient location for the operator but there is a segment of that cable that is on fused. So on the engine battery here what we're noticing is we've got a solar connection and the solar connection is with a fuse which is great but notice also the stacking of the terminals this connection should have been done on top this is the start of connection this is got probably a battery charger in the C. R. and this terminal should be because it's a smaller should be at the top. So that is something else to to tackle I also noticed the same thing over here. With some other connection you can see there's no future we talked about that that was applied you've got the negative over here and then the positive over here but then he turned terminal which is expensive is actually no heat was applied to actually make it really. I guess here is not heat resistant but you know protect against moisture another thing I want to bring to your attention is over here the code the B. Y. C. code says you can only stock really 6 connections on a terminal post and actually on this one here you have one. 23456 connections. So that's that's definitely too many I mean over here you've got 4 over here you've got 4 and over here you've got only 3. So that be something to look at is there's too much docking of terminals on that post. And that's about it. Now as you were looking down on the engine a little bit. This stuff I'm looking at especially on an on an engine on a vote of this ages you want to make sure that you protect against Sharif hi you can see some sort of wiring harness over here. You can see is loose. Right just because I'm over time and given enough time wires actual shape through. And it's actually quite surprising how many especially on an older boat like this how many. Wires are more install without a fuse because the water is going to work without a fuse the fuse is only to help you in the event of a short and so it's really essential to have safeguards or make sure that over time wires don't shave through and then make a connection and the engine you got to remember is is common right common ground so if ever a positive shave through and touches the engine block which is negative you're gonna have a dead short which would cause a fire. So just ordered on eBay you wiring harness for the engine okay enough. All right so that's the DC distribution of this boat. And then things that I'm seeing as we back away a little bit is. Stuff like this I mean stuff like that is obviously. It's not great. And it certainly makes you wonder what does everything do right and so then you can see for example something that worries me right off the bat is something like this. You know you've got a wire. That is simply gone but hanging you can see that's another loose end of it and it's just sitting there it's really essential overtime specially when you gonna be troubleshooting to make sure that all loose wires if they if they can't be removed they get labeled. And it's a really good way for an owner to stop worrying about certain things. Would be something to consider another point I'm noticing over here is you can actually see this club is actually disintegrated self rusted. I am and there's electrical wiring that's actually mounted here. And that looks to me like the wet exhaust for the boat yeah that's the next available looks like I think I'm not sure. But this is gonna get really hot when the engine runs so you really don't want to have any electrical wiring connected to that because it's gonna get it's gonna cause is wired to overheat so you don't want to run any sort of electrical wiring. Arnie when exhaust. All right so here we've got a we're looking at which is kind of rare we're actually looking at the back of an engine Pavel and a lot of them actually look like this I mean it's not inspiring but. This is certainly how a lot of them look. You can tell that things have been added change over time use of some labeling and some tape that become so brittle that they fall off you can see that wires that have been cut in terminated. You know not connected overtime peeled over seventies or some sort of white labeling there's a solar control over here. And you can see there's a junction box right beside it and there's a remote control for it the cable so you've got some good over here. What you find is fine especially on a on a wiring harness like this you'll notice that there's there's very few connections that are using actually. Teacher terminals everything is kind of more automotive terminals so if you were gonna require one of these and it sounds like you order another wiring harness I would be terminating all these connections with proper he drink so that you never have to do it again are you can see I mean just over here for example you can see the wires are actually starting to really show signs of corrosion because they're actually not tent none of these wires are tend. I'm back in the David in Houston wire and. And so it makes it worse so pretty essential actually featuring which is what you've got over here. Are you can actually tell this the future terminal. Right over here. So that was used on the insurance. I'm always a big I think that as people do more and more bundles you can actually see with this bundle people are adding tie straps but they're not taking the time. To remove the old ones and I know it sounds silly but. You know as a border chaos is natural order isn't so if you want to look for something that you're detail oriented. And you care about details as it it is that you do it yourself a lecture should you have to care about details every single. Individual that works on electrical has to care about details of the detail type of business it was no reason to have 123456 you know 7 tie straps you know you could have you want to have it supported but as you go along remove the other ones or include all of them right and all of that doesn't mean this doesn't seem to make sense but if everything's nice and neat I wanted to give you time to trouble shoot it's going to make it a lot easier. A lot easier and that's something that in order to do by himself just takes time and patience and also make sure that you don't cut the ties drops like that because over time what's going to happen is if you ever run your hands trying to reach somewhere you're gonna cut yourself and like you said yourself pretty seriously like I've got a lot of scars on my arms from tie wraps either we're not probably cut. Here we've got a really 1 of my favorite battery Chargers it's not the only good 1 but it's definitely 1 of the best ones it's a pro Nautica from pro mariner 12 which is the voltage nominal voltage of the battery the coming 24 as well 40 is basically the average becoming 20304050 and 60. You can have different settings for the type of batteries that you have they show you in the output I mean they're they're just they're really good and they're quite reliable what I like what I'm seeing here is you've actually got the wiring that is actually going this is a 3 output back but right now you can see because on this but there's only 2 bags there's an engine and a house you've got 3 wires connected a negative into positive and what's really interesting also to notices user actually shop there's actually a ground wire a chassis groundwater many people don't install chassis grounds the you know inverters and Chargers gonna work without them but it's kind of like foregoing a seatbelt in your car you don't need a seatbelt in your car that you drive a car but in the event that you're going to have an accident you're gonna want to have a chassis ground and so that's one of the most common things that we see Mr Chargers. Really like this charger it's nice it's quiet good foot print there and they're they're very reliable. What I'm looking at is some batteries which is. And when I came on board I saw 2 batteries which is and I can see some labeling which is great Liebling is great you can see engine battery and then you can see another one and so you've got an on off switch here and then you've got another switch here that wasn't label that it's got heat shrink on it and I wasn't too sure what I came in I was trying to figure out you can see this is well then cabling right so with welding cabling is absolutely essential but he drink terminals absolute central because the cable will corrode much easier than actually a marine games came with. But you've got here an older or someone we don't know who did this but out what we've got is you can see this is actually the feed coming from the house goes in you have to turn it on then current goes here in Gloucester breaker and then out and then back all the way to the winless. This is actually not just a fuse this is actually a fuse and also ineffective switch when I press this year I've actually open the circuit. So this which is effectively redundant there's no need to have this which it's basically the circuit is right now EE switched so you could simply go directly from the battery and simply remove this and have this cable come over here and then you would have the winless just be on and off with the circuit breaker. The other thing too that's really good about the location of those switches and we see this all the time is that batteries which is need to be accessible. If the battery switches would have been down in this hole yes they would have been potentially the most shortest path between the batteries in the negative and the positive distribution but the problem with that is that then it becomes really inaccessible to operate this which in the event of an emergency so you always want to have a battery switch that you don't have to go in a hole or under inside deep in an engine room to actually turn off because in the event of a fire it would be nearly suicidal to actually go down in here while everything is smoking you can't breathe actually go turned off that's which. Here we've got a fuse holder. The engine battery fuse holder. We've got a spare fuse which is great. You don't have to put a fuse on an engine battery you really don't. But if you're pretty confident in what the draw is of your starter you can actually put one in there now battery in this case there's a 400 and now so it's probably journey on the stars are good if you're gonna use when you want to use a ratio of 2 to one so you know so that the engine obviously never I've causes a nuisance trip so here you've got any L. 400 that's got a lot of big surge of current to go in multiples of 400 but for a very small amount of time. So when the engine is turning over it should be able to easily not because you said shipping on that fuse any advantage of putting one on an older boat is if ever the started does get stuck or there's a dead short from the starter to the engine which is common you're actually not going to have a fire. All right so now we're in the inside of the vessel and we're about to look at the DC before was the DC main distribution now we're gonna look at the DC panel so the DC distribution now there was doing a bunch of circuits that were directly connected and now here we've got the VC panel. So you can see this is the DC panel that's undergone some changes the first thing that I really like about what I'm seeing is you'll notice there's actually yes. New labeling it doesn't may not look modern and the way it was originally but at least everything is labeled it's quite common to see both like this where do you need to almost have a translator yeah you know steaming light is actually my running light on my fridge is actually my inverter my water is actually something else and so I really like that at this whole panels actually was the relabeled I think that's really essential especially when things get crazy on a boat it's important to know where certain breakers are. Yeah I think you're noticing is actually even the size of the breakers you can see you know 1515 and 5551555 so this is telling us the size of the breakers here you can see the sexy 3 panels here there's a DC panel with a battery monitor we saw the show on a little bit earlier. Naturally used to be other things here that have been removed and this is another sub DC distribution and this is an AC breaker. Not an older boat like this there's no volt meter which if this was a new panel you'd have to have a meter and also you you have a reverse puleri light that's good and so that's kind of the front of the panel not your usual you know again the front end of the panel looks really good. So we're gonna do now is we're gonna have a look behind the panel. Red drop this down. And here we've got. I mean this certainly isn't what the DC panel on a new view but would look like so there is definitely room for improvement here. The good news and let's start with the good news is I'm seeing a lot it looks like someone maybe it's the owner or someone else as overtime started labeling. All the wires right. And and yes this cable is going to a breaker that's labeled water pressure but now you can actually tell just from looking at the behind that actually you know here's we got alarm in someone's taking the time to start labeling every not every wire but most of the water. So that's the good news. You can see basically you've got feats coming in right you got this is basically a feed coming in and you've got another thing coming in what's confusing about this as you can see is your use you know on this ball they're using black wires for DC and then the using red electrical tape to indicate that it's actually possible. So that's something you've got to be really careful on an older boat like this that you always look for the telltale clues if certainly if we were warned this boat we would absolutely use rag for for positive and yellow for negative. So that's a good first thing that concerns me right away and because it's a big safety factor is the back of this AC panel does not have a cover. This is a double pole breaker if you touch any of these wires here you could die like I'm an inch away from potentially not as simple as that hi they've got a little bus protector here on top of the hot that's feeding all these now notice actually all these cables are actually read. Now that for me is a huge issue red is 12 volts. It's never doesn't mean 120 hot and here we've got red cabling actually indicating 120. So that means that someone needs actually really know what they're doing and they need to understand that this is a C. and actually now we're using a C. but we're using rad and so it would not be uncommon for maybe it's maybe an amateur do it yourself to actually think this is the 9. Like here right everything here is 12 volts and hundreds not understand that this is actually 120 and so if you touch anyone of those breakers when the actually the breakers on you again can have a chance of dying. So I'm there's there's I believe there's a lot of room to maneuver in a lot of things but whenever death is at play and I'm not trying to make this a big deal out of nothing I simply think there's no excuse to have any read on any at all AC circuits period for color it should be black to black and white and you'll actually notice. Date this is use out of convenience right you've got a cable here you know black white and green and what the order did or someone or it could have been a do it yourself it could be a mechanic that could be a so called electricians probably had a big spool of red wire. Wanted to the wires were too short. Right to reach this panel and so what the uses they ended up using rad. To extend all the wires making back to the panel. And so that's an absolute no no. We've got a neutral bus here which is great it's covered over time it would actually be good to label those neutrals to you've got a double pole breaker which is you need one which is great so this is the AC feed coming and you've got it a grounding box which is great well it's I really like that the neutral but like I said I like double pull I like but I really don't like that there's no back cover you actually need to have a mechanical device to get access to that you should not be able to just drop down a panel and get access to that this side this side you you're fine but A. C. you can access so easily. So now that we're looking at we've let go the AC. I would look at now the DC side and you know on my boat to be honest I had something summer when I got my boat my boat is 27 years old and my D. dissident DC distribution wasn't like that bill from the factory but I can tell you that previous owners made it look like that. And what I did on my boat and you see this would really new builds are bigger boats. What they'll do is they'll actually bring all these wires and they'll bring them to terminal strips and so what you would do is you would bring all these wires you take them all off the breakers and you bring them right on the back and you install in the back here a bunch of terminal strips and these terminal strips would actually terminate all those wires. And then the great thing about doing that is the length of the wires could be long enough to reach all that back wall without using all these but connectors everywhere. These **** connectors are gonna really because a lot of grief. But connectors just because a lot of pain over time so you take all of this and you bring them all over here on the positives on terminal strips and then you install those negative bus bars not here but again over here. And then what you do is you take from this terminal strips you install and you route vandals of cables that go to this breaker and this breaker and so what it does is it clean so over time as you're adding you were taking new circuits are off you're never actually going back to the breakers you're always going back to the terminal strips because everything from here to there stays the same and so what you would do is maybe what oversize the wires so that as you if you ever decided to change a 5:00 AM to 15 at. The any cable in that bundle would be able to handle 15 apps. And so that would be really big thing that I would recommend doing on this boat and what it does is it allows that when you left open and close this you're not gonna have it accidental wires getting pinged getting crossed getting twisted right because over time what's going to happen is that might cause the panels you know act intermittently. You can actually see wearing here what I mean by that is you can see things that were done recently and things that are more legacy. You can tell this is a new relatively new cable. Right so this is a new DC cable that's coming from the the common ground bus that we saw down below feeds here there's a little jumper that comes across. And then you can actually notice there's another cable over here. And what you commonly see on a lot of boats especially with grounds and it's really essential to you should never grounds are like. Browser like trees. A tree never grows back onto itself right and when you talk about electricity you really think about people use words like trunk and branches. And a tree as it leaves the ground right goes on a trunk the trunk my then separate into other trunks and then eventually to branches. But a branch never grows back onto itself right so the sap dozens turning in a loop right it actually goes out there's never more than one path to a leaf you can only go from earth to a leaf on 0.5 a week and when you're doing grounds on the boat people to think that more is better and what they end up doing is they end up starting to look a lot I don't have a path to the engine I'm gonna have another path to DC ground but then never realizing that their engine ground is connected to the common ground and now what they did is they did actually a current loop because now what they're doing is like they think more is merry or merrier so what you want to do if you're actually watching your boat especially on the ground you never ever ever want to have loops it's got to be like a tree a leaf has only one path all the way back to ground and so here what we have is you've got a cable that's a legacy cable we actually saw that cable that cables connected down below to the engine. Right and so it's a path to ground it would be because remember the engine is also connected to the common ground because the engine battery and the house battery connected to the DC distribution common ground that cable can be removed now that this cable is here and that would give you one past the ground so it's very essential as you add new pastor ground to remove the old paths around. Given to the you can see here is you're actually have some. We're looking at the back of a source selector switch and we're looking at another fuse holder notices fuse holder all the fuses actually you can actually click on the sides here. Right and if you undo these Phillips you can actually screw that views all the way down. So but the fit that fuse all the way down you need to undo both of these slightly and then actually re tighten them so this fuses not removable when both of these are actually tighten down. So you've got a source Alectra this actually fuse holder infuses actually made to run this small little inverter. And this cable over here is the ground. That goes into this table here and goes into this little portable small inverters how do I choose what the right breaker size well first of all. A really common thing if you're doing yourself which I would really recommend you get is one of these clamp on DC multi meters don't be I remember when I first got my boat years ago and I was all excited when to buy a tool and then I ended up buying an easy model only so make sure that if you buy one of these you just don't go to home depot because home depot is most likely going to just have an easy model you want to D. C. A. C. model and if you do that you can actually clamp around the table and you could actually measure the current going in and out of that cable so if you've got a loaded you're not sure what the load is is my water pump drawing to answer is a drawing 100 apps now I'm exaggerating it's probably drawing 7 ABS or 15 or or maybe 5 it depends how it's running what you want to do is if you clamp on this around the cable you can tell actually what the draw the pump is. So you want to always make sure that that breakers never gonna cost using shipping right so you don't want to if you're drawing 4.5 ounce you'll want to have a 5 amp breaker. But the other thing too is if you're changing the breaker size always make sure that the breaker is there does not just protect the appliance but also protect the wire the line in between the breaker and the appliance so that line for example if you've got I don't know you might be putting a water pump on board and you have a water pump and you're using a gauge 16 wire wire gauge 16 wires not gonna be able to handle the loads of a water pump right not a standard water pump so you want to make sure that you always have at least the conductor between the appliance and the breaker that can handle the average that the breakers going to give so it's really about sizing finding out what the load is with a clamp on meter or simply reading the specs on the device if you can find them and then making sure that the line feeding that appliance is actually the right size and then you can size the breaker to only not only protect the line but also protect the appliance is there a formula for the size of the breaker. I know like twice if it no I would say you probably want to do a ratio Jennifer nuisance tripping I would say you probably want to do at least maybe a 25 percent you know so you'd never get close so if you've got for example if a 10 hour break or you don't want to be running 8 or 9 apps out of that give yourself a little bit of room now if you're getting specific really these breakers are generally not to protect the appliance because you can't buy this breaker and 7 absent 9:00 AM Sir these are really to protect the line. What you'll end up having is a fuse and that fuse is going to be very specific for the manufacture it might say I want at 10:00 AM fuse I wanted 8 AG C. I want to fast blow to. So what you end up having is a breaker for the line to turn the appliance on and off and protect the lives and then you'll have a fuse right before the appliance that's going to protect the appliance and that's going to be extremely specific and it's actually gonna be. Specified by the manufacturer of the product. And those fuses. Can I use those automotive space yeah absolutely I love those absolutism with a waterproof but depends where it is you don't have to have waterproof inside the boat I don't think so there's no need but yes those ATO ATC's automotive fuses blade fuses are great probably the glass fuse why is sometimes a shatter but also reading the label of what is the size of a glass fuse in itself is a life challenge I mean it's extremely hard even for my guys are in their thirties I'm I'm only 4041 and I have a I'm squinting and depending on the light it's really hard what's great about the ATO 80 seizes their color coordinated some of them come with built in LED so if they burn out they actually are showing that the light the fuse is actually gonna have a small little Edie telling you that it got burned out and it's pretty obvious what is it to apple 3 apple 5 after 10:00 AM it's all color coordinated and they're easy to take it out so I certainly given a choice not that every time you want to use N. A. T. O. U. T. C. but given a choice I would probably most of the time I would end up choosing a T. O. ATC fuse. Are a common question I get all the time from owners like yourself is Jeff I've got a battery switch it's got and it's a source selector off one to both and I also have what usually down below which is an automatic combined a really or an alternative to that would be because that's just a marketing name VSR which is a voltage sense really and why would I have both on my boat like why would I have able to sense really or any C. R. when I have a sore selector that gives me the ability to go both. The difference between the 2 is that an ACR VSR is effectively a digital solenoid that put your batteries in parallel whenever there's a charging voltage and also disconnects them automatically whenever there isn't a charging voltage and why that's essential for a bold order is that over time people will yes when the engine is running will remember to turn the switch to both while the engine is running but what's going to happen is there might be this occasion where you forget to go back to either 1 or 2 and then what happens is you're at anchor you're using your friend you're using your prices you might be there for 23 days and now you go to start the engine and what you did is you actually dream both the engine battery and the house battery so now both of your both facts I've been brought down to 50 percent and you go to start the engine maybe it's cold maybe the engine battery need to be 100 percent to start the engine you go to start it but you don't have a back up and so that's what's really nice about any C. R. VS R. as a lousy on order to actually have the batteries be put in peril out whenever there's a charging voltage automatically without their involvement and also have been disconnected without their involvement so we end up putting hundreds and hundreds of these A. C. R. as in VS ours on both as a way to provide automation for the owner the source selector switch is then use more for ways to manually put the batteries in parallel right all in all both whenever you want to charge the engine or run the engine and your engine batteries week so it's something that you would do I rarely as opposed to every time you run the engine. Another question that a lot of border Assam selves chef okay I've got here I've got a source selector switch and I'm gonna source selector where one is house to his engine. I'm I had anchor I've enjoyed I've been there for 2 days I'm on one should I started the engine on my house battery or should start my engine or start my engine on the engine battery the dedicated engine batteries onto. Yes of course you could start the engine off battery one but it's a little bit you want to confirm every time you start the engine you want to confirm that your engine battery can do it by itself not. With the help of the house but you won the engine battery on its own to prove to you every time you start your engine that can do it without hassle without any hiccups without any difficulty because what that gives you that gives you confidence that you have a good engine battery because an engine batteries relatively inexpensive to change you want to go out you want to know every time you go out that when you're going to actually want to come back home you're gonna be able to start that engine with a problem and that's why I always emphasize donors to never have the battery switch on both to start an engine it's like walking around with a cane yeah sure you could do it but when it be nice to know when you are limping as opposed to have a crutch right there ready to take your weight all the time and then then who you gonna call when you need more help with you're always starting on both that something doesn't work what's your backup you're always using your back up and so it's essential to keep separation of an engine and a house battery so that you always know if you start having a weak battery you know that you need to either resolve it yourself or call someone to help you resolve this problem. One of the most common things that we recommend boaters to have especially if you're going to actually use your batteries and a deep cycle application meeting you're actually leave the dock stay one night overnight or maybe multiple nights or go on a cruise for an extended period of time when you're actually using your batteries and cycling them is to install what's called a battery monitor and a battery monitor is essentially a fuel gauge for your batteries and also a speedometer free batteries fuel gauge means it tells you the depth of discharge of your batteries it tells you in a percentage are your values 100 percent or the at 80 percent or that 20 percent and so gives you in a percentage what is the capacity of your battery is very similar to what a fuel gauge would do in a fraction half tank water tank full tank which is nice and also speedometer tells you how fast you either charging the batteries or are you depleting them and the rate at which you deplete your batteries is essential because that tells you if you're actually left a load that you shouldn't have or maybe start managing your load so that you're gonna start conserving power so that you can state at anchorage for longer and so when you are batteries are a little bit like money you know it's one of those things that you rarely have enough of and you want to actually conserve and so by knowing the rate at which you burn power right the apps coming in and out you're gonna be able to start maybe changing your behavior and start basically conserving power and they will do I really need all these lights on should I leave the chartplotter are when I'm an anchor and I'm not using it what are things you can turn on and off so that you start conserving power so your battery backs whatever you have lasted longer and on this but we've got actually one of our one of our most popular battery monitors you can see it's over here it's actually a victory on battery monitor now what that device shows you right now is actually chose us. The voltage so if I choose the up and down arrow here right now we're seeing as we're seeing a voltage of 13.98 and that is actually out of the house battery if you go down and we select we're actually seeing right now what that means is we're actually 13.98 as a float charge and we're actually seeing right now point 15 amps going into the batteries so that's effectively a float current. To watch is another way to look at it it's absent walks instead at the voltage and here we've got a half hour so what that tells us is the battery you've got a little indicator over here that tells you the battery is completely full and with batteries 0 means full and negative is actually you're always thinking about little bit like a line of credit you know if you've got a line of credit of you know maybe $500 or $1000 if you've got no dollars in your bank account you're gonna start with 0 and you can go all the way to minus 1000 or minus 500 battery monitor looks at the same thing battery capacity is always in the negative. Here's the other value here we're seeing is that at 0 amp hours you have 100 percent of usable battery capacity. I'm this this year's infinity in its not so relevant for boat owners because the current draw on a house battery fluctuates a lot throughout the day and this is actually predicting how long are your battery's going to last based on the last 4 minutes or 32 minutes or 60 minutes and since loads coming off he regularly if it's like a little bit like driving a car in the city and saying all right now in the city I'm doing 30 calories an hour there for fif I drive in the city for the next 2:00 hours I'm gonna have covered 60 commerce the problem is your speed in the city varies continuously and so does your apps on a boat you know certainly the water pump comes on and comes off and so you're gonna find yourself where you might have the water pump come on its 15 amps the fridge turns on another 5 a light gets on the light comes off all those loans are coming on and off and it's really like driving a car in the city you look at the speed in the city the speed is constantly doing that and it's really hard to take that speed and save over the last 30 minutes my average speed is $46 an hour 40 apps and therefore my batteries only gonna last this amount of time. So hi prediction on a battery monitors really hard but what is it hard is knowing where you are at at any given moment are your fuel gauge and a percentage or knowing the the speed at which you're using power at any given time and over over a period of time while you're looking at your battery model you're gonna be able start sussing out or assessing always this normal I'm you know about to call it for the night I'm looking I only see 3 acts or I'm going to call it I see 20 ounce what's on why do I have 20 M. drive my boat what did I leave on did I leave the radar on the chart plotter are there lights on that I don't know did I leave my running lights on is my anchor light on or off or maybe you're going to bed and it's a drop 0 you like well where's my acolyte microlight is in cat doesn't and it should be drawn to ABS so it starts you start getting a feel for it because you've got a feedback and allows owners to start managing their power on the ball better. Jeff how much power my using on my boat what's my dear we empower budget and also do I have the right batteries for that and also how am I going to recharge I might meet my daily demand. So with the battery monitor you can start figuring out because you've got a history right you can see over time all I started let from 9:00 AM to 9:00 AM after for 2004 hours I use today 0 2005 hours next day I use 137 next day use 5 and over time you're gonna start having an average and the average is going to tell you depending on the season and it should change on the season because our power consumption changes depending if it's a shoulder season winter or summer what is your average after hours and you've got to consider what are the big loads on a boat the biggest load on a boat pretty much up to 70 or 80 feet is refrigeration refrigeration is proportionally always the largest load on a boat because as the ball gets bigger and bigger there's simply more more fridges and so at this latitude here with the type of compressors we have fridges journey run at a half duty cycle meeting if you've got a fridge that runs at 5:00 AM draw 5 amps for 2004 hours times point 5 so that's 5 times 24. You call that 120 divided by 2 so that's a 60 amp hour low just for that now if you for example on this boat you have a water meter the water meter drops $0.26 let's say you're running for 2:00 hours that's 2:00 hours and $0.26 that's 50 2:00 hours plus the 60 for the fridge you're 100 12:00 hours just to start off with plus then some water pumps a little delights and maybe a little bit in the murder of a bit of an instrumental of it of the VHF radio so that you can find yourself you know maybe having on that is using the water maker maybe you're using 150 hours a day the days you're aren't maybe you're using 100. So now you've got a range you know is it 100 a 50 hours a day at 12. The next question is okay so we've got a battery back in on this but we've got a battery bank that's for golf cart batteries great. Both battery 2 sets of batteries are wired in series and then put a parallel. Marketing would say maybe it's more than 400 after hours but I would say let's pull back let's just call it 400 hours so 400 AB hours where you don't want to bring the batteries because they're flooded less than 50 percent you bring that down 50 percent of 400. S. 200 amp hours but we also know that a ball charging the top and takes forever and so now you're looking at from 85 to 100 is not really usable so effectively on this boat you would have from 50 to 85 is really kind of your your radical range and so that gives you a third of 400 which is around 135 members which seems to be what you're using on this boat everyday so this battery back would be properly size for pretty much a day a day point 5 of typical use now what gets interesting is on this boat there's actually solar farm this boat there's actually an array on top of the V. and array on top of the doctor. There's 300 what's on top of the Bimini and 80 what's on top of the Dodgers so that is 381. We've been promoting in and encouraging owners to consider solar for over 5 years now and all my boat I've done it as well and we probably have over 250 installs and all these installs what we've noticed and I have a lot of our clients that are kind of a little bit do you like me there are tracking their daily output of solar what we've noticed is for owners that are using solar here like in the Pacific Northwest you know from Puget sound all the way to desolation sound not Alaska because god knows what's going to happen over whether you might not see the sun for all summer out there you might but you might not staying in this kind of vicinity of the Pacific Northwest you're looking at a ratio between walks and after hours is a factor for and yes I know there's a long formula but luckily there's a shorthand and the shorthand is if you've got 100 wall panel. In this latitude in the summer for made to end of August you're looking at 100 divided by 4 is going to give your after hours so on this boat you've got 380 what's 380 watts divided by 4 is going to be nah it's just a little bit shy of I don't sounds like 9595 and hours a day so on this boat assuming the solar panels are good quality that the controllers are MPPT controllers the wiring is actually doesn't cause a lot of all the drop you're going to get about 95 after hours a day of output from the solar panels and that's not the best out but if it's beautiful sunny blue sky you're gonna get maybe probably divide by 3 so you would get 380 divided by 3 and if things aren't going so well I might be 380 divided by 5 so your range is really between divide by 3 if you're optimistic and things are gorgeous blue skies to pretty cloudy not end of the world cloudy pretty cloudy is divided by 5 on average it's for so on this boat with 90 5:00 hours a day of solar you're pretty close if you're running the water meter maybe only for 1 hour and you're running out of the load you might find yourself on this boat to be able to have maybe 100 half our budget today and so it right now 95 you're pretty much close.