Wiring diagram for 5.80 PERFECT thanks Pete!

[Admin]

5.80 Builder Pete Kenyon had a very impressive wiring set up on his blog...I asked him for a copy for TREKKA and he gladly provided it....follow this and you have everything...THANKS PETE this is very valuable indeed for many



Hi Don,
Schematic attached - pretty sure its accurate, but been doing it while supposed to be at work so done fairly quickly...

Some notes below -
Battery Monitor
I've not included any detail about how the battery monitor is attached - the drawing gets pretty complicated with the 6 or 7 wires needed for that. Each make of battery monitor will be slightly different, but all follow the same principles of using a shunt (basically a sensor) in the main negative side i think. If you are using something that you can't make head or tail of let me know the model and i will be able to put another drawing together that shows where stuff needs to connect.


Switch Panels
The switch panels are shown slightly differently from how i have them setup, each switch panel is a bit different in how the common positive feed is sent to the individual switches, so i have just indicated it with one big wire in the drawing and two separate panels. In my setup I've supplied 7 switches each with a separate wire from the main positive Battery 1 bus bar, so that I can supply the 8th switch with a supply from the Battery 2 bus bar - so i can connect the tiller pilot to this one. I've also disconnected the LED indicator lights in the panels as they are ridiculously bright!


Items
The pictures of each item are there as an indication only (i.e. the bus bars with 4 terminals could be a single connection post etc), however i generally try to limit one connection to a terminal at a time. The setup could be done without this, but it is good practice. It also allows for expansion at a later date.


Battery combiner
The terminal numbers on the battery combiner are also product specific (probably) I'm using a 'Cyrix ct' thing, which seems to work correctly when i've tested it - here's what is supposed to happen:
- Battery 1 and Battery 2 are isolated from each other by default

- When Battery 1 voltage reaches 13.6v (i think it is) i.e. charging then the relay opens and connects Battery 2. When the voltage drops below 12.6v (i think) then the relay closes and the batteries are separated again.

The only question i have about this is whether the solar charge controller puts out enough voltage to open the relay - i'll test this and let you know if i have to change anything. I need some sun here in the UK to test this though - I may be waiting some time!
If it doesn't work there are solar charge controllers that can charge two batteries at the same time, with settings to ensure one is always full before the other.

Wire sizes

The thick red and black wires indicate where larger cross section cables need to be, the thinner ones, where smaller ones...
I calculated (with a website wire gauge calculator thing) that the cables will never be loaded more than about 40-50amps (all electrics on, solar panel in full sun etc) so that 16mm2 wire for the larger cables was fine (the 16mm2 wire is good for maybe 80 amps+ over the short cable runs). By sizing the circuit breakers less than this the cables will never heat up and catch fire before the circuit breakers trip... (at least thats the theory - size the breakers for wire, not devices attached). The smaller wire is 2.5mm2 in my setup, this should be good to about 10 amps over a long distance (longer than i reckon will be possible in such a small boat). The only thing i need to check is that i think the switch panel has some circuit breaks at 15 amps, so these need to be changed to 10 amps.
The tiller pilot might need a chunkier cable, but i haven't bought that yet, so have no idea of the current draw to figure out the cable size needed...


Hope this helps, let me know if i can help at all - I've rewired a 35 foot yacht and fitted stuff like electric bow thrusters etc, so have some limited experience that i might be able to aid with.
Have a great weekend - its almost beer o'clock here...
thanks

Pete

[pete]

No worries Don, quick update though, slightly amended drawing.

Minor changes to:
- The battery negatives to the shunt (the setup in the drawing below is for the NASA BM1 battery monitor, it monitors charge/ discharge time (capacity) for Battery 1 and only voltage for Battery 2 - you could combine both if you want, but then you lose visibility of the state of each battery in comparison to each other)

- The solar regulator - some people advocate a fuse per line from the panel, but i reckon this is wrong. I've only got a fuse on the positive supply now. Also the negative output does not come out well in the pic above, so its shown better in the image below.

northcardinal.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/wiring-diagram-v4.png

[captdan]

Thanks for sharing the diagram Pete !

[jimschofield]

Thank you Pete,

A real time saver. I've been told Blue Sea makes good marine electrical equipment, any thoughts ?

Jim

[Joe - Sail No 46]

hey Jim, most of mine on the 580 are blue sea, switch panels etc, good kit, used it before and been pleased with it.

[jimschofield]

Hi again Pete,

In my experience, tiller pilots draw very little current if the boat is well balanced. Raymarine gives specs of 40mA for an ST2000. I once sailed from Wales to Kilmore Quay, about 24 hrs, with no engine but a fully charged battery for the tiller pilot. It ran all the time and I checked the battery voltage every hour, from memory it dropped only 0.2 V overall.

Here’s my list for your eight connection points :

VHF Radio,
AIS,
Tiller Pilot,
Nav Lights,
Interior LED Lights,
12 Volt Sockets x 3

The auto bilge is a separate connection.

Have I forgotten anything ?

Jim

[pete]

Hi Jim,

I've never actually held a Blue Sea anything next to a less well known brand item so can't really comment from experience. The pricing seems to indicate that they should be a step change better than almost everything else and i think they are specced on high end production yachts so should be really good quality. I'm taking a bit of a risk with my switch panel (ebay) which may end up being a mistake, but its easy enough to change out. Same with the isolators - these are no-brand items, but have exactly the same bolt pattern as branded ones, so if they fail changing them is pretty simple. They are about a third of the price, so i thought i'd give them a go.

The one place i won't risk a potentially dodgy item is fusing and wiring. Fusing as it needs to work at its advertised rating to protect the boat from any other items failing and wiring purely beacuse its a pain in the arse to change once installed. I'm using Oceanflex wire and branded circuit breakers and fuses (and fuse holders). Also I'll be investing in proper quality batteries - not done any research into these yet so if anyone has had good experiences with a certain brand let me know!

In terms of circuits I think I'm aligned with you on -

VHF (I'm going to get a VHF with integrated class B that is switchable on/off via the VHF set)

GPS/Plotter

Nav Lights (inc compass light)

Interior lights

12v/USB outlets

Tiller Pilot

Instruments

Spare

I'm pretty sure that for UK sailing you don't need a permanent anchor light (you can use a rechargable lantern hung in the rig somewhere) but if not, I'll have to use the spare for this. 

[Igor]

T H A N K S Pete!!!