Electrical, Gutting and Inverters/Radios

Posted By: Dano Superior Pleasure CM30 Rainy Lake ON
Date: 1/3/08 8:02p.m.

Report: outside forum guidelines

In Response To: Seal/electrical (Dan Williams)

My little spot of heaven right now, other than my boat, has both AC and DC to which I need to use. I recently built a tool shed in which I have two battery chargers that will charge five batteries each at 10 amps and with indicators up to 80% and fully charged. Most batteries are Gels but I also charge my acid base batteriers too with them. One battery takes care of the shower, 12 volt Shruflo pump on demand, wish I could get that shower flow at home. Another, the weakest, is for my marine band radios. The rest I use one at a time via a AC Inverter for my small TV to check weather and listen to DTV music via a computor speaker amp to two good size speakers. Big TV and lights I turn on the generator. I haven't sat down and figuered how to the cross over of all the batteries, the charging system and then switching from AC to DC for power source, now this in the cabin on shore. Boat will be fairly straight forward, I think or thunk! Regardless that nightmare by the battery in the boat and master switch has to go. Save for starting the engine and depthfinder, I've had little use of the rest of that mess. It even has the original trickle AC charger in it. Well the ceramic goddess is gone along with the holding tank to the PO in Florida. Porta Poddies work just fine up here for there is no one to pump you out anyways. Main potable water tank will go forward under the V berth. Battery(s) to under the cockpit. Porta Poddie to where the battery was near the steps with screen. When done, it's part of the cabin again and can be well ventilated too. So you loose a berth for sleeping and none have done so there anyways. Knocking out the "head" area will give more living space too to enjoy when below and that potential area give much to thought. Berthing for two, three or four vs six and then the potential for additional living space. Planning all that out and getting wiring runs done to point of use and supply, thats another ordeal. And on top of that is Murphy's Law, besides installing something wrong. If it can fail, it will. My last two weeks in my house of 30 years, I'm not supposed to be home, 25 feet away I notice my bedroom fan is on high speed, I know it's on low, by the time I get to the fan switch it catches on fire. Killed the circuit breaker, problem solved, not my problem anymore. I was lucky though. So point is what you put in, make sure you can service any point where connections are. If they are not soldered together you better be able to inspect or replace them. But they can still fail and if lucky your right there. I can't remember if my 1000 watt inverter is a Koss or Boss, High end regardless. The 30 amp fuses will let you know real quick especially if you reverse polarity. This inverter I have makes no audible noise and all fuses are on the exterior***big point to remember. However, Inverters create static if close to a radio, ie marine. I didn't realize the reality of this until I got a baby room monitor to hear the audiable alarm off the inverter when the battery was low. The monitor was eight feet away from the inverter, the monitor is 30 feet away in the cabin. You can hear every drop of rain hitting the tin roof and you can also hear the humm/buzz of the Inverter via the electronic signal it gives off. With the Inverter out of the cabin, Radio's work just fine now. I always wondered about our radios(AM, FM, HF, UHF and VHF) in flying for the military, they were all DC powered. Yet we had two generators, at least, in a Huey or bigger aircraft. One was strictly DC the other DC and with an AC Inverter. Thats a footlocker or two of technical information, nice to have, but I'm glad not to have it to haul around anymore. But in that I can't explain how we got around the static in transmission and reception. Well for what it's worth, try not to pack DC and AC together and pay attention to recommended twists in wiring with the wires you use for both AC and DC. I can't explain St Elmo's Fire either in my cockpit, nor my father's, nor my brother's either and many others that have experienced it that I know personnally. Well all just know we had AC and DC systems/chargers running at the same time during storms. We all thought we were going to die...well that didn't happen but the brown shorts did. Regardless, best wishes in what you come up with. I'll be here on the side. Dano