Saturday, May 29, 2010

Electrical mess and a bus bar question

I am not proud of Herbie's battery cabling. Before I install any new batteries I really need to sort out the awful dog's breakfast of wiring that the current lot have. Not my fault, I inherited it, but I really should have sorted it out before now.

The problem stems from the fact that when the boat was built, they welded in a battery tray big enough for three batteries - two domestic, one starter, and we now have four. What's worse is that because of where they are, on the curving shelf alongside the engine bay, they can't line up properly. So because of this (wooden boxes shown in red),the wiring ends up looking like this.



Yuck. Unsightly, very difficult to figure out what goes where, and it's not good to have all those wires on one battery post.

I need to rip it all out, resite the battery boxes further up the shelf where I can get them in a nice neat line and redo the cabling in a neat fashion. In the space where I have to work this is a non trivial task, and I suspect I will utter the odd curse or two before I finish. I have to build new boxes and somehow fix them down, and might have to make up a few new cables.

Does anyone know, is it OK to use a bus bar for connecting heavy current items e.g. the electric charger and the inverter?

2 comments:

Simon said...

current lot

arf...

It's normally easy enough to neaten up wiring, especially if you don't mind having new cables made up of the right length. I got midland chandlers to do mine - my crimpers only go up to 16mm2.

Don't see any reason why you can't use a busbar system as long as it's well insulated, like the battery terminals you'd want it fully covered in normal use. If you get jack to make up new straps, though, he may well happily advise on the rest?

(written in Winkwell in the rain)

laura said...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8712718.stm

know its nothing to do with that but thought this might be useful for you ..