Having fun refurbishing an Albin 25, was “Catching up on a few years lost maintenance on Driftless”

[tribologist]

Trying to catch up on DA’s electric panel.... Clean slate!!

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Here is what came out...

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And this is going in...

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[tribologist]

My thinking is to run a wire direct from battery and regular 12V from battery selector up to panel, tie the bilge pump switch to the direct feedband the manual bilge switch to the regular 12V through a diode to avoid backfeeding the breaker panel through the bilge float switch.

Im debating if i should feed the 12V jacks with the cabin light switch.

I probably keep one 12V jack with its own feed direct from battery so I can plug in a light etc with the selector switch off.

So many options...

[tribologist]

Doing good progress on electric panel. I think I got all the original wires back on besides the wiper. When I replaced the original fuse block with a breaker panel I lost the feed for it.

Ulf

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[hetek]

Very nice work! I do hope the pictures are out of order though - more like "after" and "before".

Still, very nice and clean. I see you went to the DA school of wiring!

I'm not at that stage yet on mine. I have a clean slate. It did look looked your "before" picture but now it looks like the Sahara Desert. All gone! I'll just start from scratch.

[DesertAlbin736]

Still, very nice and clean. I see you went to the DA school of wiring!

Thanks for the compliment, but I in turn followed Don Casey's 'school of ABYC wiring'. Coming from a sailing background I already had this book in our library, but everything in it applies to powerboats as well.

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https://www.amazon.com/Sailboat-Electri ... 0070366497

https://stingysailor.com/2018/03/17/boo ... implified/

Nice work triboloogist!

[DesertAlbin736]

I probably keep one 12V jack with its own feed direct from battery so I can plug in a light etc with the selector switch off.

I have something like that too, but is not direct wired from the battery. The main selector switch shuts everything off except the leads from the solar panel and the battery charger. Just be sure yours has its own inline fuse or panel breaker sized to the wire ampacity. Here's the other side of the wall opposite where the distribution wire terminal blocks are. The small black three circuit 12V panel box at left came with the boat and added fused circuit switches for the spreader deck light on the sailing mast, the windshield wipers, and a 2nd cig lighter socket. Actually, that 12V OUT switch feeds the 12V jack on the dash board, and the one in the black panel has its own inline fuse. There is also a 3rd 12V socket mounted low on the front wall of the hanging closet in the cabin that feeds off the cabin lights circuit. The voltmeter tester switch was actually a single pole momentary on/off that could only test the house bank. But I ran an extra wire from the hot side of the ignition switch & changed out the single pole toggle to a double pole switch to be able to read voltage on each bank separately.

Figuring out how & where to mount the shore power breaker panel was difficult, and I ended up getting a weatherproof plastic junction box deep enough to accommodate the breakers & cut a hole in the center of the cover to mount the panel.

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I have a lot more going on with my distribution panel than yours so far, some of which has to do with having the Blue Sea Systems "Add-A-Battery" main switch and associated SI-ACR relay as well as the external voltage regulator made necessary by the different charging regime for AGM batteries.

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Old 120VAC shore power entrance....

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New configuration with galvanic isolator inline with the green wire safety ground circuit, & breaker panel in above photo. Not shown, the three outlets in the 15 amp 120VAC outlet circuit is fitted with a GFCI outlet first in line from the the breaker panel.

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The batteries themselves each have their own fuses at the terminals.

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Speaking of batteries, we looked at some trawlers while up in Washington State & read survey results on one of them, which noted that wing nuts on battery posts were contrary to ABYC code/standards, & should all be regular hex nuts.

La Dolce Vita on Thames River opposite USS Nautilus museum, New London, CT, 2015

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[Dieselram94]

Nice work!!!
Can’t wait to read your next post!!

[tribologist]

Thanks DA! I really appreciate the images and tips. Its a great idea to mount equipment on that side. I will put a small AC panel/breaker there too. Right now I have the power intake on the side panel of the pilot house and it is simply wired with regular rubber cords to two outlets. I'm going to look for a reasonable priced GFI breaker. Does Marinas only offer 30A feed? All I really need is power for a charger. Main use for it is probably when working on it on land sitting on the trailer for powering battery chargers, lights, fans etc.

Once I have the "house" wiring done I need to clean up and carefully document the engine wiring a bit. The engine is originally a industrial engine so it had a "power to run solenoid" on the pump that was replaced with a "power to stop" from a 3YM30 (same basic engine as the Isuzu 3CB1 I have) Both are on the engine and active. I plan to only keep the Yanmar solenoid.

One tip for working on car and boat wiring is to work live but with a old fashion 12V 45-55W headlight bulb connected between the positive terminal on the battery and the feed. This way you have a very effective current limiter and it allow you to make sure you have good connection and that all the breakers etc works as you go. It also allow you to trace power very effectively since you can see the bulb light up whenever you short a line to ground.

Nice picture on the Thames. Were you heading up to Mohegan Sun?

Ulf

[tribologist]

Example of an empty set from my old math book. {All french speaking reindeer’s}

Better example.....
{All too large electric boxes}

Nearly out of space...

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[tribologist]

Fixed the old mast feed. The cables were damaged where they exit the roof in the mast foot so i did my best splicing in new wires, covered it with 5200 and then made a cap/sun shade of dead soft stainless foil i use for heat treating steel. I hope the foil protects it. No fun to redo it. The PO had given up on it and ran separate wires along the sun roof edge.

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[tribologist]

Got a new BFF... got this Makita angle impact when I restored a -78 Goldwing. Used it once and had it in a drawer since. Been using it like crazy when wiring. It is fantastic when adding zip tie anchors. I ran all the port side cables, speaker, 110 outlet, fuel sender under the floor joists. It would have been very hard with a regular impact driver.

In the beginning i was using cable clamps but I changed all non exposed ones to zip tie anchors. I stick them in place and then run #6-3/8 screws to secure them. Makes it so easy to add wires.

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[tribologist]

Shiny front cabin!! My wife is doing a fantastic job on it.

Is there a risk that we will have problems with condensation not having the vinyl on the inside of the hull?

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[Dieselram94]

That really brightened up the cabin! Are you going to add any led lighting around the edge?

[WillieC]

Condensation hasn't been too much of a problem for us. Since ours is the Mark II (pre-super-duper deluxe) we have a gelcoat lid in the vee section. Very stylish.

We are in the PNW, moor our boat in the summer on a ball in the Canal, trailer it next to the house for much of the balance of the year. In winter, or as it gets more into fall I run a couple dehumidifers, the cheap tiny electric element ones. When freeze is threatening, I run a small 1000W heater with fan inside the boat. All this does wonders for condensation. Our routine is to remove pretty much everything except the curtains and store it in the garage.

Nice job on the paint! Don't you love a clean palette?

[tribologist]

Thanks!

We were looking at some LED strips at Defender on Sunday but have not purchased any yet. They were quite expensive. I’m thinking of trying some non boat ones.
For sure going to put some over the bench.
I got warm white ba15d LED’s for the cabin fixtures but they sucked! Not bright enough and they were wired differently. Ground on case and 12V on pads. I’m thinking of trying some LED plates instead. I’m also hoping to find 44mm LED’s for the head and the cockpit. Any suggestions for good ones?

I was more thinking of condensation on the hull sides in the cabin at night in the early part of summer when water is cold but it might not be a problem then.

Ulf