Electrical system overhaul (and cleaning)

The engine is finally finished (sort of) and it is time to go over the electrical systems in the sailboat. At first we will just focus on the basic functionalities, which is power to the engine and the instruments to the engine. Depending on the weather we might continue with other functions or continue with the plastic repairs. For us it is important to have good knowledge about our system so that we know what could be wrong if something should happen.

First up was to clean the battery  box so that we could get our new batteries in place. We bought our batteries a while ago second hand just one year old and never used. They are two Leoch LPC12-140 and they give 140 Ah each.

We used a rubber mat in the bottom of the battery box to get the surface more even and so that the batteries stand safer. We had bought a main fuse, main circuit breakers and a battery combiner relay and it was time to position them.

We will have one main circuit breakers for the engine and the bow thruster and another for the service part.

The cable we use is a fine stranded 35mm2 with dual insulation. Unfortunately it is not thin plated but hopefully it will last good anyway. The cable come from our ship Aline, the previous owner had got hold of a big cable reel and left it when Thomas bought the ship. Saves us a lot of money that people leave such great things behind! 🙂

While Thomas worked with the electric system, Petra did some cleaning of the bathroom. As said before, it was many years since our sailboat was used and that equals a lot of yummy stuff.

When finishing up for the day we realized that our batteries are a little bit too high. We have insulation on the hatch door above the batteries (since they are located next to engine) and that insulation has aluminum on them. Luckily we realized this before we put on the hatch door, which would have short circuit our batteries. We need to solve it, probably by removing the insulation above the batteries and building a new wall with insulation between the batteries and the engine. This is something we would want anyway to protect the batteries from the heat form the engine.