Here is Part 3 of my 4 Part Marine Electrical article. This article is about Fuses and Circuit Breakers. Circuit protections devices are as important as determining the proper wire sizes when designing your electrical system. Use this article with the other two articles on Marine Wire listed in these posts
Click on the following link: Fuses and Circuit Breakers
I am going to be doing a comparison of circuit breaker based marine electrical panels in the near future. Having installed panels from Blue-Sea, Sea Dog and other manufacturers. I have found that each manufacturer offers an advantage or advantages to a boat but you have to be careful to understand what you want and need before you buy. There are some characteristics of these panels I think are important that some manufacturers do well with and others do not. If anyone has anything they want me to look at or cover please tell me in the next few weeks. These panels are the heart of your power system and it is vital that you get what you need and understand your panels limitations.
Happy New Year to All! The Holiday season keeps most of us pretty busy and for most the boat boat projects are put on hold, no exception here. I did manage to find some time early in the Holiday season to do more work on the jon boat. I decided to change the LIVE WELL into a storage box. This WELL is not water tight from the top so the storage may be limited to objects that can get wet, but at least these objects (like rope) are off the sole. Also I am thinking about ways to make the well lid watertight. But here is what I did to the LIVE WELL. The following picture shows the LIVE WELL as it came from the factory.
The WELL is un-coated aluminum with a drain at the bottom. I cleaned and wire brushed the insides of the WELL until it was clean, then spray painted the box with etching primer for aluminum (Krylon product) than painted the inside of the WELL with 3 coats of pick-up truck bed paint. This will give the inside of the WELL a scratch resistant surface as well as to prevent pitting corrosion from items in the WELL that get wet.
No reason for the black color other than it will look good with the final paint color of the boat.
The next project to tackle on this boat will be the completion of the transom. Stay tuned.