Electrics

[PrudenceCP23]

HeaveToo, thanks for the description of how you have connected your batteries to the fuse panels and bus bars - and for the link!  I followed it back a bit and found its home page, tons of interesting stuff there with lots to think about and a winter's worth of reading :-)

Bob, thanks for the photos of your navigation station.  I may copy your idea of moving the panel and switch to the same location that you have...

[Shawn]

HeaveToo,

"The batteries are wired in parallel to get 12V."

Just so no one gets confused... you are wiring two 6v batteries in series to get 12v. Positive of one battery connects to negative of the other. Then the other two connections on the batteries are going to ground buss and the battery switch panel.

Parallel is when you tie the positives together and the negatives together. This increases amp/hours but doesn't change the system voltage. If you had two 12v batteries and wanted it to be a larger 12v bank you would parallel them.

Your 100w panel should keep up with a fridge but maybe not with the autopilot and everything else running all day too. I ran a fridge all summer (Dometic portable fridge) with a 100w panel and a single group 24 deep cycle with no problem.

Shawn

[HeaveToo]

Shawn, you are right with the wiring.  I must have gotten the terms confused.

[brackish]

My first suggestion is that if you are going to be adding a panel that you make sure you add one large enough that you can have some spare breakers so that when you think of something later on, it will be easy to add.  What I have that has not been mentioned, is pressure water for both the sink and a cockpit shower and washdown.  The original piston pump sink spigot leaked and really bothered my bursitis and it's nice to have that fixed.  My AC panel has an onboard AC outlet and a breaker for my Guest 5/5 charger, along with some spare slots.  The panel is stock on a 23IV but I have added a lot and modified the wiring significantly.  Above the main panel, I have a direct wired bilge pump with a float switch, a switch that controls courtesy lights that are night vision friendly for the cabin sole and cockpit seat lockers, and a 12V outlet.  location is between the top and second step in the companionway.  Surprisingly it is a good location with no real problems with traffic interfering with panel use.

[PrudenceCP23]

Brackish, that makes a lot of sense.  I'll be sure to use your suggestion to have some extra breakers for any future upgrades.  I also like your idea of the night vision friendly lights in the cockpit lockers, I can see that they would come in handy from time to time :-)