Getting Wired

The mast is now sanded down. Used paint stripper to get out the paint in the tracks. I recently went for a short visit to the boat to talk with a rigger where we chatted about additional work to be done. All to prepare it for repainting.

They should be stopping by the marina to pick it up soon.

I setup new batteries for the house bank, in place under the starboard quarterberth. I ordered wire that will connect the batteries together and got to use my hammer crimper for the first time. I think it turned out well and finished nicely with heat shrink. I'll shorten and finish the other end when I'm at the boat next time.


4 gauge to connect between two house bank batteries

heat shrink in place

I was looking over the current wiring beyond the battery bank, on top of the fresh water tank and looking to redo some of them. Current wiring that went to the batteries had 5/16" terminals but need to be changed to 3/8". In general, I think it could be cleaned up a bit, with identifying where they go and putting some labels on them.



Now the mast will be away, I can get back to other projects.

One of the other projects I'm working on is putting together an electrical panel with breakers by the nav desk. I originally wanted to use a bus bar to connect the new VHF in its new position without running multiple wires back to the batteries. Someone suggested I install an actual breaker panel to make sure power is disconnected so went with that idea instead. There will be enough positions for breakers to add a few other items if/when the time comes to expand the electronics.

 I ordered the panel through Front Panel Express using their free software was pretty easy to put together. Black anodized aluminum with the HIN engraved into the panel. The breakers are Blue Sea A-series. Blue Sea is nice in that they have the dimensions for hole spacing and cutout templates for their products.


Next post I'll show the panel after it arrives.

Hour Meter & Tiller

I went to the boat briefly today. It's rainy and windy so not much else was going on.

I have a survey left over from the previous owner when he bought the boat in 2007. The engine hours recorded in the survey says 714hrs. Since owning the boat, I've run the engine for six or more hours yet the hour meter has not moved.

I used some spare speaker wire I had laying around the house to hook up to the meter to test whether it works. It took a couple seconds but it clicked and started making a sound showing that it did work and moved slightly. I flipped switches, turned the engine key on from the panel and couldn't see anywhere that would get it to work. I'll trace wires around another time to get it working along with the engine.

That didn't take long but the main work was to remove the tiller. The nut and bolt are made of bronze. I first used a dremel to cut a slot on the head of the bolt. Using a wrench and a heavy duty screwdriver, the still wouldn't budge from each other. I then took the dremel and cut away from the nut. I then used a smaller screw driver to pound the bolt out of the hole. The tiller was still tight between the rudder cheeks so I had to work the bolt out while moving the tiller up and down.

Now, it's at the house where I will have it kept indoors while it dries out. I can then strip it down of the old varnish, fill in some holes, epoxy a split and then refinish it.

Cut up nut and washer

Port side of rudder cheek

Starboard side of rudder cheek

Sunny Day

Today was a nice day so I did some work at the boat.

First thing I did was to replace the battery switch. It went pretty good. One cable seemed to be slightly short so it was difficult to reach the connection. Because of how the cables were connected, it ended up being mounted upside down. It still seems to work fine as it is.

The other day, I bought a couple batteries from Sams Club, both marine AGM. One was a Group 31 replacing the 31 I took off for the house battery. The starting battery I got is a Group 34 replacing a Group 24. The old battery box was broken so I replaced that too.

Here's the house battery.

The battery fit well in the battery box I found.

I mounted the strap to tie it down just inside the compartment.

Everything went together quite well. Here everything is strapped down nicely. With the space inside this compartment, I could probably add a second battery but I'll just stick with one right now.

I started taking things back to the boat to empty out the house. I took the cusions, sails and a few other things.

Another thing I was working on is figuring out the electric bilge pump. I thought the cable had slipped off. I lifted the wood the pump was mounted on to check and saw that the output was broken off and still in the hose. I'm thinking to order a new bilge pump. Then, I can put a more flexible hose on the end so it will not break again. The hose heading to the through-hull is very stiff.

Rainy Day

Today was a bit rainy so not much work was done at the boat. Even with lightning flashing around the area, I still setup my metal ladder and visited the boat for a moment. Probably a good thing I did. I found a screw used for one of the hand rails above had drops coming down. I will need to reseal that screw and probably should do all of them while I'm at it.

Here, you can see the drop showing up the the discoloration of the wood nearby. The drops were pretty steady and this part of the handrail was not covered by the tarp currently on top.

Good news is the gaskets on the portholes are working nicely. Here, you can see the water collecting at the bottom. I used a flashlight to find water dripping and everything was dry.

It was nice to see the wood that I scrapped the old varnish off of. Some of the grain showed up dark and I think some of it was from the grey areas. I'm pretty sure I scrapped off the varnish pretty well too. Still, seeing how some of the grain shows up is nice. I am looking forward to getting some fresh varnish on it.

Something else I noticed on the boat is a thru-hole item. I had to look it up and found that it is a transducer used for depth, Airmar P319. I thought it was odd that the cord was still coiled up so I assume that it was a fairly recent upgrade/addition from a previous owner. I looked at the compartment where the cable would be routed and saw a plastic housing that might have held an old transducer. This other one had the cable routed toward the stern. So, another project, take the old plastic housing and cable out and route the cable for the mounted transducer. Oh and I found out the cable connects to the Garmin 546S.

Lastly, I got a new battery switch in the mail today. The case was slightly deeper than the old one so I had to go to the store for longer screws. I'll update how that looks in another post.

Battery Switch

Looks like I might have an additional project. This time involving electricity, or maybe just the cables.

While working on using jumper cables to power the boat from my truck, the knob for the battery switch came loose. I tried using a screw driver to get the knob off so I could see if there was a way to tighten it but the screw didn't move. I actually ended up stripping the head of the screw. So now, I have a switch that seems to be stuck in the Battery 1 position and the knob itself moves freely.

The knob isn't supposed to be pointed in this direction.

UPDATE: 26 April 2012

Probably a good thing the knob on this broke while I'm working on it and not while out cruising around somewhere. I took the switch off to get a closer look at it.

The backside was pretty well cracked.

To me, it didn't look good. I think these things are supposed to be sealed from weather to keep from getting corroded. I took a screwdriver to get into one of the cracks and pried it open.

As you can see here, the contacts look ok and the grease is still free flowing. The only thing is the two posts on either side from the center.

These two posts were clean broken from the knob on the other end.

If these posts were still holding on, I would not have been able to separate the two halves very easily. A replacement battery switch should be arriving soon then I can update again the new install.





Batteries

There are two batteries on Rhapsody. Battery 1 is the house battery. It's used to power lights and electronics. Battery 2 is the starter battery which is used for starting the engine.