Good Morning / Good Week

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Red Beard
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Joined: March 16th, 2020, 9:06 pm

Good Morning / Good Week

Post by Red Beard »

Good Monday morning,

Hope everyone is doing well and keeping it together.

Chose to upgrade the boat because I’ve cut all the grass and hit all my golf balls in my neighbors yard and he has yet to throw them back over the fence.

So I ordered a NEW: Bimini top, helm, SS cleats, LED lights, switch panel, and few other upgrades coming in this week. I feel good about everything except the switch panel. (Not a pro when it comes to wiring things neatly)

Y’all be good
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FishWithChris
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Re: Good Morning / Good Week

Post by FishWithChris »

solid buys! Are you going to install yourself? Don't hesitate to reach out to John Swanson over at St Mark Pro Marine; he's worked on many forum members' boats and has done great work. I think he has a little wait right now, but worth it to get in line.

what leds are you putting on?
Three-fourths of the Earth's surface is water, and one-fourth is land. It is quite clear that the good Lord intended us to spend triple the amount of time fishing as taking care of the lawn. ~Chuck Clark

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Red Beard
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Good Morning / Good Week

Post by Red Beard »

FishWithChris wrote:solid buys! Are you going to install yourself? Don't hesitate to reach out to John Swanson over at St Mark Pro Marine; he's worked on many forum members' boats and has done great work. I think he has a little wait right now, but worth it to get in line.

what leds are you putting on?
Going to install everything myself was the plan. Thank you for the recommendation, I have seen his work and it always looks top notch, he goes the extra mile and it shows.

I’d like to streamline my electrical wants/needs and make everything neat and safe.

The lights aren’t anything special. Just the 3m tape led 12” strips in red. Going to tuck a couple under the front deck and under the center console with a few dabs of clear silicone. Nothing fancy just something quick/easy.

But if you got any recommendations I’m all ears on lights. Been on amazon all morning trying to find a slicker navigation-light set up.


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Srbenda
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Re: Good Morning / Good Week

Post by Srbenda »

Second recommendation for John. Solid work


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Red Beard
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Re: Good Morning / Good Week

Post by Red Beard »

Actually was able to link up through social media and got me a place in line.

Thanks fellas.


Got the new helm and top up no problem. Put one new cleat on and realized I needed to make a trip to the hardware store.


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Red Beard
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Re: Good Morning / Good Week

Post by Red Beard »

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New helm and decals definitely gave the skiff a fresh look.


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StMarksAngler
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Re: Good Morning / Good Week

Post by StMarksAngler »

I redid all the wiring in my boat this past year. Didn't know the first thing about it at the time, but figured I should learn. Ordered a new custom switch panel, couple hundred feet of marine grade wire and connectors, some crimpers, fuse panel, terminal blocks, circuit breakers... took about a week start to finish, an hour or two a day after work. Couldn't have been easier and I know every inch of my electrical system inside and out now.
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Red Beard
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Good Morning / Good Week

Post by Red Beard »

StMarksAngler wrote:I redid all the wiring in my boat this past year. Didn't know the first thing about it at the time, but figured I should learn. Ordered a new custom switch panel, couple hundred feet of marine grade wire and connectors, some crimpers, fuse panel, terminal blocks, circuit breakers... took about a week start to finish, an hour or two a day after work. Couldn't have been easier and I know every inch of my electrical system inside and out now.
That was my intentions before I spoke with St.Marks Pro on IG and actually his IG page is what inspired me to take it on and is a great example of what it should look like.

The new switch panel came in today and doesn’t look too bad wiring wise, even is pre-wired with inline fuses. Not looking forward to cutting the square out of my CC to mount it, but I know it’s worth it.

I’ll give it a stab but if I fail he is going to charge me extra to undo it. Ha ha


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Red Beard
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Re: Good Morning / Good Week

Post by Red Beard »

What size wire gauge should I use? I know to use marine grade wiring and solid connectors with some e-grease to prevent corrosion.

I’m wiring the nav-lights, LED flounder lights, LED interior lights, depth finder, and maybe a bilge pump.

I don’t see any of this drawing high amounts of power, but don’t want to undershoot it.


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StMarksAngler
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Re: Good Morning / Good Week

Post by StMarksAngler »

Red Beard wrote:What size wire gauge should I use? I know to use marine grade wiring and solid connectors with some e-grease to prevent corrosion.
I’m wiring the nav-lights, LED flounder lights, LED interior lights, depth finder, and maybe a bilge pump.
I don’t see any of this drawing high amounts of power, but don’t want to undershoot it.
I did mine to exceed the ABYC standards for marine wiring, at 3% voltage drop. In my case for a 20ft boat with max wiring runs of about 40ft round trip, that came out to be 16 AWG for everything except the trolling motor. I went up a size to 14 AWG for good measure, tinned copper marine-grade wire with waterproof heatshrink crimped marine fasteners. After making the leap to ratcheting crimpers for that project there's absolutely no other way to go for a wiring project imo, especially in a marine environment. And with the heathshrink crimps you can skip the grease.

You can use a calculator like the one below from Blue Seas to determine the appropriate gauge based on the device's amps, total length of the run of the wire and system voltage. Everything you mentioned is going to be 12v... nav/interior lights, bilge, depth finder are all going to be 1-3 amps. Flounder LEDs I don't know, but would guess 3-5 amps? Anyway, just plug your numbers into the calculator but unless your wiring runs are really long, 16 AWG should do it.

Remember that the power for your float switch for the bilge pump should be wired directly to the battery, and not through a fuse, breaker or switch.

http://circuitwizard.bluesea.com/
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Red Beard
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Re: Good Morning / Good Week

Post by Red Beard »

Thank you St. Marks for the quick response.

Great info there about the volt drop. I was unaware of that.

Now can I run duplex wiring to save on clutter?


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StMarksAngler
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Re: Good Morning / Good Week

Post by StMarksAngler »

Definitely. I bought all my marine wire and terminal hardware through this place, one of the most highly recommended on many of the boating forums:

https://www.bestboatwire.com/marine-wir ... -boat-wire
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Red Beard
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Re: Good Morning / Good Week

Post by Red Beard »

Thank you again.


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StMarksAngler
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Re: Good Morning / Good Week

Post by StMarksAngler »

Good luck!
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Red Beard
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Re: Good Morning / Good Week

Post by Red Beard »

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On this wiring diagram, what is +VE (Load) and +VE (Battery)?

Is this telling me the +VE (Battery) wire for the 15A goes straight to battery source?


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